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Strategies and evaluation criteria for retention areas in reconstruction processes – new perspectives and open research questions based on the case study Ahr ValleyIn summer 2021 parts of Western Germany, especially North-Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland Palatinate was hit severely by devastating floods resulting from the cyclone "Bernd" with almost stationary and high precipitation of 115 mm rain in 72 h (Kreienkamp et al. 2021). The resulting damage of the flood event was the highest since decades in Germany with a high number of damaged buildings and infrastructure and around 189 fatalities (DKKV 2022). The Ahr-Valley in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was the most severely affected region.After one and a half years, the region and affected municipalities are still in the process of reconstruction and facing enormous challenges. Anyway, in order to better cope with future events the responsible planning authorities strive to develop strategies for flood prevention and flood risk reduction. In this regard, the identification of areas for effective water-retention measures and the designation of open corridors for runoff with reduced damage potential plays a crucial role. Possible measures range from adaptations in land use and cultivation patterns or nature based solutions to technical retention systems. Due to this variety of possible measures, which can have different resource requirements and different legal or financial dependencies, a systematic evaluation of potential measures is necessary.Against this background, this study aims at answering the questions on how to systematize and prioritize measures for potential water-retention areas and lowering flood damage potential while considering constraints and challenges during the reconstruction process after a major flood. In addition to common planning criteria, aspects of land allocation need to be taken into account and different levels of feasibility of a certain measure need to be considered. Therefore, we analyze and systematize the multitude of possible retention measures. Based on this research and on expert discussions with relevant actors in the Ahr-Valley we present and discuss a set of criteria for evaluation.The results of this study can help to inform political decision makers and planning authorities for land use and urban planning and support decisions on allocation of areas. Furthermore, the paper discusses which measures and strategies should be prepared long before a flood disaster for successful preparedness and improvement of flood prevention. ReferencesDKKV (Hrsg.,2022): Die Flutkatastrophe im Juli 2021. Ein Jahr danach: Aufarbeitung und erste Lehren für die Zukunft.DKKV-Schriftenreihe Nr. 62, BonnKreienkamp F, Philip SY, Tradowsky JS, Kew SF, Lorenz P, Arrighi J, Belleflamme A, Bettmann T, Caluwaerts S, Chan SC (2021) Rapid attribution of heavy rainfall events leading to the severe flooding in Western Europe during July 202

Wildfires, drought, insect outbreaks, and windstorms are altering the forest‐associated ecosystem services that are essential for human well‐being, and the impacts of such events are likely to increase under ongoing climate change. However, a widely accepted and operational framework for evaluating forest vulnerability and risk to these disturbances remains lacking. We propose a general framework to assess forest vulnerability and risk based on the widely used concepts of exposure, hazard magnitude, susceptibility, and lack of adaptive capacity as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We suggest a standardized procedure for defining and combining these components, as well as a list of indicators readily applicable to the primary hazards to forests associated with climate change. This framework and its methodology constitute a basis for a systematic assessment of forest risk and vulnerability for policy makers, as well as for forest and land managers, that can aid in the development of forward‐looking policies.

While climate change is already a real issue in many parts of the world, it is even more threatening the well-being of future generations. The SDG 1.5 explicitly aims to reduce the vulnerability and exposure to climate related hazards by 2030. TheWorld Risk Index (WRI) is one well-respected approach in profiling countries risk to natural hazard. To effectively monitor development and detect decision points on the climate resilience pathway, data of high resolution in space and time about the world’s countries is of urgent importance. The World Risk Index will guide the supervised learning part resulting in an indicator set derived from OpenStreetMap (OSM) tags, establishing on one hand an open risk index and adding deep explanatory power to its components by a qualitative discussion of the OSM themes. The second part explores with unsupervised algorithms the inherent characteristic of country groups classified by the open risk index and deduces common patterns of socio-economic vulnerability. Hence, the inherent challenge of this work is to substitute existing static indicators with new dynamic indicators, not only substituting them but also painting a more detailed picture. Moreover, new data sources still questioned often by their reliability compared to World Bank or census data, and therefore its opportunities are neglected instead of critically exploring the potential. This unique combination is not done yet and bares huge potential moreover united with the open source geo community to contribute a little piece of the puzzle for achieving the SDG 1.5.

Climate Resilient Trajectories are routes to development progress that take into account aspects of climate change adaptation and mitigation in a sustainability context, offering a way to explicitly consider impacts of development and climate change choices on different sectors, scales, and socio-economic effects. Due to their scope and relevance, Climate Resilient Trajectories are of great interest to climate scientists, governments and the private sector, based on the urgent need to consider different strategies to decarbonize the economy. Pursuing such trajectories may also be beneficial in processes to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) up to 2030 and beyond. This Communication describes the concept of Climate Resilient Trajectories and clarifies its relevance, with particular attention to the poor. It also outlines some of the necessary considerations to ensure no one is left behind. It highlights the need for the design of Climate Resilient Trajectories to be flexible enough to accommodate the specific and complex contexts in which poor and marginalized people operate; and that the involvement of all relevant stakeholders (e.g. governments, business and private organizations, policy makers, and whole communities) is necessary in order to ensure such trajectories yield the expected benefits. It further demonstrates that it is critical to consider both short- and long-term time frames when prioritizing and implementing development agendas for the poor.

Adaptation strategies to climate change need information about present and future climatic conditions. However, next to scenarios about the future climate, scenarios about future vulnerability are essential, since also changing societal conditions fundamentally determine adaptation needs. At the international and national level, first initiatives for developing vulnerability scenarios and so-called shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) have been undertaken. Most of these scenarios, however, do not provide sufficient information for local scenarios and local climate risk management. There is an urgent need to develop scenarios for vulnerability at the local scale in order to complement climate change scenarios. Heat stress is seen as a key challenge in cities in the context of climate change and further urban growth. Based on the research project ZURES (ZURES 2020 website), the paper presents a new method for human vulnerability scenarios to heat stress at the very local scale for growing medium-sized cities. In contrast to global models that outline future scenarios mostly with a country-level resolution, we show a new method on how to develop spatially specific scenario information for different districts within cities, starting from the planned urban development and expansion. The method provides a new opportunity to explore how different urban development strategies and housing policies influence future human exposure and vulnerability. Opportunities and constraints of the approach are revealed. Finally, we discuss how these scenarios can inform future urban development and risk management strategies and how these could complement more global or national approaches.

Spatial planning has an important role to play in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Particularly in growing urban regions, cities are expanding into hazard-prone areas and lack of planning is leading to increased vulnerability of people and structures and is exacerbating hazards. Gathering and understanding information about the determinants of climate risk—hazard, exposure, and vulnerability—and how physical climate and environmental changes interact with the human socioeconomic system, is an important basis for spatial planning that reduces risk. Using the case study of the Andaman Coast of Thailand, this paper provides an example of the determinants of climate risk and how they are relevant to spatial planning. The paper highlights the importance of considering not just climate-related hazards but also how human settlements are exposed and vulnerable to these hazards.

The concepts of vulnerability, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation are interlinked. Risk reduction requires a focus not just on the hazards themselves or on the people and structures exposed to hazards but on the vulnerability of those exposed. Vulnerability helps with the identification of root causes that make people or structures susceptible to being affected by natural and climate-related hazards. It is therefore an essential component of reducing risk of disasters and of adapting to climate change. The need to better assess and acknowledge vulnerability has been recognized by several communities of thought and practice, including the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) communities. The concept of vulnerability was introduced during the 1980s as a way to better understand the differential consequences of similar hazard events and differential impacts of climate change on different societies or social groups and physical structures. Since then, the concept gradually became an integral part of discourses around disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Although the history of the emergence of vulnerability concepts and the different perspectives of these communities mean the way they frame vulnerability differs, the academic discourse has reached wide agreement that risk—and actual harm and losses—are not just caused by physical events apparently out of human control but primarily by what is exposed and vulnerable to those events. In the international policy arena, vulnerability, risk, and adaptation concepts are now integrated into the global agenda on sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, and climate change. In the context of international development projects and financial aid, the terms and concepts are increasingly used and applied. However, there is still too little focus on addressing underlying vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability and disaster risk assessment has been evaluated from different perspectives with focus on global or national scale. There is a lack of methodologies on city scale, which are able to capture inner-city disparities with regard to socioeconomic aspects. Therefore, the main objective was to develop a transparent and comprehensive indicator-based approach which is flexible in terms of data availability and is not tied to a specific case study side. This research proposes two flexible methodological approaches on how to perform socioeconomic vulnerability assessment. Susceptibility, Coping and Adaptation are the main elements of a modular hierarchical structure to capture the societal sphere of vulnerability. The first method is completely based on official census data at block scale. The second method is an expansion and includes data derived from a field survey to add components of risk perception. The proposed methodologies were developed and applied in the city of Genoa (Italy). The results are displayed spatially explicit on maps. Furthermore statistical analysis, to reveal the driving forces which influence vulnerability, was performed. The census-based approach revealed that vulnerability is forced along the river by the inherent susceptibility, as well as the lack of adaptation. The two approaches can be used effectively in gaining different insights. The flexibility of the framework proved to be suitable to the objective of the research. However, the values computed in this research do not claim completeness, and the aim was to provide useful information for stakeholders in decision making process to reduce vulnerability and risk.

In 2016, heavy precipitation events in Southern Germany demonstrated that pluvial flooding can cause serious damages, not just in large cities but also in small and medium-sized cities. Hazard-oriented disaster management approaches to better address such spatially ubiquitous extreme events are already being developed. However, integrated strategies to reduce risk and to promote climate-resilient development pathways through both private precautionary measures and integrated urban planning are still underdeveloped. Considering the uncertainties associated with heavy precipitation, analyzing and understanding damages, strengthening people’s preparedness and improving preventative measures are central components of resilience building. This paper complements existing empirical studies on households’ preparedness and provides further insight into how resilience to flooding from heavy precipitation in cities can be strengthened. We do this by analyzing the damages caused by one particular heavy precipitation event, the preparedness of people in the affected city and their perceptions of responsibilities for improving precautionary measures. This paper presents the results from a household survey with a total of 1,128 completed questionnaires which was carried out in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. The findings of the household survey illustrate the variety of damages caused by the heavy precipitation event and reveal important differences between households who experienced damages from pluvial flooding and those who did not. Lastly, findings of people’s perception about who is responsible for improved precautions offer interesting insights into tools that might help to enhance resilience building. Finally, the paper formulates recommendations for an improved assessment of resilience-building processes, individual capacities and planning tools to build climate resilience to extreme precipitation events.

The protection and conservation of cultural heritage is important for our society, not only in order to preserve cultural identity, but also because it acts as a wealth creator, bringing tourism-related opportunities on which many communities depend. However, Europe’s heritage assets are highly exposed to extreme weather events and natural hazards, which may be exacerbated as a result of climate change. The goal of the STORM (Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Technical and Organisational Resources Management) project is to provide critical decision-making as well as technical tools to multiple sectors and stakeholders engaged in the protection of cultural heritage from extreme events and climate change. Here, the STORM framework will be presented, focusing on the communication of extreme events and climate change information through the risk assessment procedure, which serves as an important basis of the decision-making tools. Using the climate change communication methodology outlined here, the effect of climate change on cultural heritage specific natural hazards can be quantified and subsequently used in the risk assessment procedure, hereby resulting in an increased understanding of climate change risks on cultural heritage. In addition, STORM-developed technical solutions that aid information transfer during and after extreme events will be highlighted.

Responding to recently identified challenges in the comprehensive evaluation of climate change adaptation, we suggest an assessment framework that incorporates a multidisciplinary viewpoint on adaptation. The framework combines three major components to link system-oriented concepts of risk and vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change with actor-oriented approaches of decision-making: the risk context, individual decision-making, and adaptation assessment. We have thereby developed an approach that is embedded in context and scale, takes an actor-oriented perspective, and is applicable to multiple evaluation approaches. We tested the framework empirically with a mixed-methods approach to assess adaptation in flood-exposed areas of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. This has shown the distinct meanings of good adaptation and uncovered mismatches in choices for adaptation strategies and evaluations of those strategies across different actors hindering sustainable development.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. Please check back later for the full article. Spatial and urban planning are acknowledged as important tools and processes that influence exposure to natural and technical hazards and risk accumulation, as well as risk and vulnerability reduction. Even though natural hazards (such as floods) and technical hazards have been discussed in spatial and urban planning for quite some time in various countries and regions, only in a very few cities and regions has there been a sufficient and systematic approach to establish risk management as part of the planning task within the field of spatial planning and urban land-use planning. Risk management strategies in spatial and urban planning have often been strengthened after major crises, such as severe fires in the middle ages in cities in Europe, or after major floods or hurricanes in North America, Asia, and Latin America, as well as Europe and Africa. In this context, risk management is understood as a cluster of concrete and practical strategies and actions on how to handle risks, and in terms of spatial and urban planning, including those risks that are of spatial importance or significant with regard to planning processes.

Negative consequences of natural hazards are the result of both the frequency and intensity of the hazard and the vulnerability of the society or element at risk exposed. Therefore, vulnerability assessment is an essential step to reduce these consequences and consequently natural hazard risk. The assessment of vulnerability requires an ability to both identify and understand the susceptibility of elements at risk and—in a broader sense—of the society to these hazards. The concept of vulnerability is used today by various disciplines, and hence, it is embedded in multiple disciplinary theories underpinning either a technical or a social origin of the concept and resulting in a range of paradigms for either a qualitative or quantitative assessment of vulnerability. However, efforts to reduce the exposure to hazards and to create disaster-resilient communities require intersections among these theories (e.g. Hufschmidt and Glade 2010), since human activity cannot be seen independently from the environmental settings and vice versa. Acknowledging different roots of disciplinary paradigms, methods determining structural, economic, institutional or social vulnerability should be inter-woven in order to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to adopt to ongoing global change processes. Current approaches in vulnerability research are driven by a divide between social scientists and natural scientists, even if recently some attempts have been made within to

O desenvolvimento de estratégias apropriadas de redução de riscos e de vulnerabilidades para lidar com os riscos de tsunamis é um desafio importante para países, regiões e cidades a eles expostos. Este artigo descreve a forma como os riscos da ocorrência de tsunamis e, em particular, a vulnerabilidade a esses riscos podem ser avaliados e medidos. Com este objectivo, aplicou‑se um quadro de avaliação de vulnerabilidade à cidade de Cádis, o estudo de caso, de modo a destacar o uso prático e os desafios e as lacunas com que uma avaliação deste tipo tem de lidar. Os resultados revelam informações importantes para a melhoria sistemática da capacidade de resposta societal das cidades e dos seus habitantes a riscos potenciais de tsunamis. Elaboraram‑se mapas de perigos e vulnerabilidades, assim como dados qualitativos obtidos, por exemplo, através de discussões de grupo. Estes mapas e inquéritos são fundamentais quando se destinam ao desenvolvimento de um sistema de alerta e resposta rápida centrado nas populações. As conclusões deste artigo têm por base investigação levada a cabo no quadro do projecto TRANSFER (Tsunami Risk and Strategies for the European Region), financiado pela Comissão Europeia, que tem por objectivo contribuir para melhorar o conhecimento dos processos envolvidos nos tsunamis na região Euro‑Mediterrânica, desenvolver métodos e ferramentas para avaliar a vulnerabilidade e o risco e identificar estratégias para a redução dos riscos de tsunami. The development of appropriate risk and vulnerability reduction strategies to cope with tsunami risks is a major challenge for countries, regions, and cities exposed to potential tsunamis. European coastal cities such as Cadiz are exposed to tsunami risks. However, most official risk reduction strategies as well as the local population are not aware of the probability of such a phenomenon and the potential threat that tsunami waves could pose to their littoral. This paper outlines how tsunami risks, and particularly tsunami vulnerability, could be assessed and measured. To achieve this, a vulnerability assessment framework was applied focusing on the city of Cadiz as a case study in order to highlight the practical use and the challenges and gaps such an assessment has to deal with. The findings yield important information that could assist with the systematic improvement of societal response capacities of cities and their inhabitants to potential tsunami risks. Hazard and vulnerability maps were developed, and qualitative data was obtained through, for example, focused group discussions. The findings of the paper are based on research conducted within the framework of the European Commission funded project TRANSFER (Tsunami Risk and Strategies For the European Region), a project that aims to improve the understanding of tsunami processes in the Euro-Mediterranean region, to develop methods and tools to assess vulnerability and risk, and to identify strategies for the reduction of tsunami risks. Le développement de stratégies appropriées de réduction des risques et des vulnérabilités pour faire face aux risques de tsunamis est un défi majeur pour les pays, régions et villes qui y sont exposés. Cet article décrit comment les risques de survenue de tsunamis et, en particulier, la vulnérabilité à ces risques peuvent être évalués et mesurés. Avec cet objectif en vue, nous avons appliqué un cadre d’évaluation de la vulnérabilité de la ville de Cadix, l’étude de cas, afin de mettre en évidence l’utilisation pratique et les défis et les lacunes avec lesquels une évaluation de ce type doit faire face. Les résultats révèlent d’importantes informations pour l’amélioration systématique de la capacité de réponse sociale des villes et de leurs habitants face à de potentiels risques de tsunamis. Des cartes des dangers et des vulnérabilités ont été élaborées, ainsi qu’obtenues des données qualitatives à travers, par exemple, de discussions de groupe. Ces cartes et ces enquêtes sont essentielles pour développer un système d’alerte et une intervention rapide centrés sur les populations. Les conclusions de cet article sont fondées sur des recherches effectuées au titre du projet TRANSFER (Tsunami Risk and Strategies for the European Region), financé par la Commission européenne, qui vise à contribuer à une meilleure compréhension des processus impliqués en cas de tsunamis dans la région euro-méditerranéenne, à développer des méthodes et des outils pour évaluer la vulnérabilité et le risque et à identifier des stratégies pour réduire les risques de tsunami.

The development of appropriate risk and vulnerability reduction strategies to cope with tsunami risks is a major challenge for countries, regions, and cities exposed to potential tsunamis. European coastal cities such as Cadiz are exposed to tsunami risks. However, most official risk reduction strategies as well as the local population are not aware of the probability of such a phenomenon and the potential threat that tsunami waves could pose to their littoral. This paper outlines how tsunami risks, and particularly tsunami vulnerability, could be assessed and measured. To achieve this, a vulnerability assessment framework was applied focusing on the city of Cadiz as a case study in order to highlight the practical use and the challenges and gaps such an assessment has to deal with. The findings yield important information that could assist with the systematic improvement of societal response capacities of cities and their inhabitants to potential tsunami risks. Hazard and vulnerability maps were developed, and qualitative data was obtained through, for example, focused group discussions. These maps and surveys are essential for the development of a people-centred early warning and response system. Therefore, in this regard, the Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System in the North Eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected seas promoted by the UNESCO-Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) should encompass these assessments to ensure that action is particularly intensified and fostered by those potentially exposed. That means that besides the necessary technical infrastructure for tsunami detection, additional response and adaptation measures need to be promoted – particularly those that reduce the vulnerability of people and regions exposed – in terms of national systems. In addition, it is important to develop emergency preparedness and awareness plans in order to create an integrated regional Tsunami EarlyWarning System (TEWS) by 2011. The findings of the paper are based on research conducted within the framework of the EC funded project TRANSFER: “Tsunami Risk ANd Strategies For the European Region”, a project that aims to improve the understanding of tsunami processes in the Euro- Mediterranean region, to develop methods and tools to assess vulnerability and risk, and to identify strategies for the reduction of tsunami risks. This study was funded by TRANSFER Project, contract STREP 37058 UE. Information regarding tsunami sources was made available by NEAREST Project, contract STREP 037110. The authors wish to thank the support of Stefano Tinti and Nevio Zittelini, principal investigators of the above projects and to our colleagues Pedro Terrinha, Luis Matias and Marc-Andre Gutscher, with which we had many fruitful discussions.

Sustainable development has become an important principle for spatial planning in Europe. In 2000, the European Ministers Conference on Regional and Spatial Planning resolved 'Guidelines for Sustainable Spatial Planning on the European Continent' (CEMAT, 2000). Although the principle of sustainable development has gained popu larity in regional planning, it has not yet been widely implemented. With the amendment of the Planning Law in Germany in 1998, sustainable development has been established as a guiding principle for spatial planning. This calls for instruments to operationalize the concept on the one hand and to measure the sustainability of planning processes, inputs and outcomes on the other. This article examines how indicators for sustainable

In recent years, resilience has become a key term in disaster risk management (DRM). Its potential has been mainly discussed with respect to social-ecological systems as well as communities. With respect to Critical Infrastructures (CIs) however, resilience and vulnerability are often used without clear definition and reference to the DRM context. This paper aims to conceptualize vulnerability and resilience for the CI context. Building on socio-ecological approaches, the paper will outline the added value that a more stringent conceptualization of resilience offers for DRM of CIs. After an introduction of CIs and their meaning in the context of DRM (Section 1), the distinct features of the resilience concept and its application in different disciplines are presented (Section 2). Some of the governance challenges associated with the implementation of resilience strategies are presented (Section 3) before conclusions are drawn (Section 4).

The IPCC special report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (see IPCC, A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2012a, p. 582) underscores the importance of linking disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. However, in reality, practical approaches in adaptation and risk reduction have primarily been developed in isolation, rather than as a part of a parallel and intertwined process. This chapter examines the options and concepts that allow for the strengthening of the link between Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). In addition, barriers and mismatches between the two communities will be addressed. The chapter also discusses how limited cooperation between different institutions and ministries has hampered effective synergies between CCA and DRR in praxis. Finally, the chapter outlines recommendations and measures that need to be adopted in order to overcome existing barriers. In this regard criteria are formulated that should be applied in order to constantly monitor and evaluate adaptation strategies designed to simultaneously meet disaster risk reduction requirements.

Reducing risk that emerges from hazards of natural origin and societal vulnerability is a key challenge for the development of more resilient communities and the overall goal of sustainable development. The following chapter outlines a framework for multidimensional, holistic vulnerability assessment that is understood as part of risk evaluation and risk management in the context of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). As a heuristic, the framework is a thinking tool to guide systematic assessments of vulnerability and to provide a basis for comparative indicators and criteria development to assess key factors and various dimensions of vulnerability, particularly in regions in Europe, however, it can also be applied in other world regions. The framework has been developed within the context of the research project MOVE (Methods for the Improvement of Vulnerability Assessment in Europe; ) sponsored by the European Commission within the framework of the FP 7 program.

Coastal urban regions in low-lying areas in developing countries are often hotspots of climate change related risks and therefore the analysis of different characteristics of vulnerability, resilience and transformation is an important prerequisite for planning and decision making. Even though the concepts of resilience and transformation have been discussed for some time, they often remain still very abstract. Against this background the following paper aims to illustrate how different characteristics of vulnerability: susceptibility, exposure and adaptation from resilience to transformative change can be assessed in practice at the level of individual households and different city districts. The household survey was conducted in four low-income, at risk areas in the coastal megacity of Lagos. It reveals important differences between the case study locations in terms of perceived capacities and actual responses of households to extreme events and creeping hazards. The analysis of behavioral changes undertaken after extreme events underscores that experience of loss and damage is an important stimulus for people to change their behavior. Moreover perception of actual and future risk management capacities and the performance of government institutions influences risk management regimes at the household level. It was found that at risk populations experienced both, inaction from government and individual households. This is a corrective to the majority literature that focuses on proactive local or government action. In fact, these examples of success may be quite rare and were not found in the four settlements studied in this research. The survey is part of a larger international project regarding the Transformation and Resilience of Urban Coasts (TRUC (2016). Transformation fo urban coasts Available at www.bel_truc.org ) funded by the Belmont Forum and the DFG in particular in terms of the research in Lagos.

Many climate change adaptation efforts aim to address the implications of potential changes in the frequency, intensity, and duration of weather and climate events that affect the risk of extreme impacts on human society. That risk is determined not only by the climate and weather events (the hazards) but also by the exposure and vulnerability to these hazards. Therefore, effective adaptation and disaster risk management strategies and practices also depend on a rigorous understanding of the dimensions of exposure and vulnerability, as well as a proper assessment of changes in those dimensions. This chapter aims to provide that understanding and assessment, by further detailing the determinants of risk as presented in Chapter 1. The first sections of this chapter elucidate the concepts that are needed to define and understand risk, and show that risk originates from a combination of social processes and their interaction with the environment (Sections 2.2 and 2.3), and highlight the role of coping and adaptive capacities (Section 2.4). The following section (2.5) describes the different dimensions of vulnerability and exposure as well as trends therein. Given that exposure and vulnerability are highly context-specific, this section is by definition limited to a general overview (a more quantitative perspective on trends is provided in Chapter 4). A methodological discussion (Section 2.6) of approaches to identify and assess risk provides indications of how the dimensions of exposure and vulnerability can be explored in specific contexts, such as adaptation planning, and the central role of risk perception and risk communication. The chapter concludes with a cross-cutting discussion of risk accumulation and the nature of disasters.

This chapter deals with the conceptualization, identification and assessment of the vulnerability of different social groups to water related hazards in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is globally seen as one of the key hotspots of climate change related risks due to its exposure to floods, salinization and potential sea level rise. In order to underline the multifaceted nature of vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change the paper outlines vulnerability profiles of different households and socio-economic groups in selected hazard prone areas, notably in rural communities exposed to high floods, coastal communities exposed to saline intrusion and urban communities exposed to urban and tidal flooding. The different locations selected for the assessment of vulnerability allow comparing how different local context situations and hazard phenomena might influence specific coping and adaptation strategies. The socio-economic transformation processes and policy reforms that have affected all three locations are examined in terms of their influence on vulnerability and capacities. The chapter provides a contribution to a further enhancement of methods, data bases and quality criteria for moving from an impact oriented risk assessment to a forward-looking vulnerability assessment that can inform future adaptation strategies. In this regard the chapter makes a contribution for linking disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) discourses. Particularly, the analysis of vulnerabilities to creeping-changes has often not been sufficiently addresses and incorporated in DRR strategies in Vietnam.

This policy-focused Global Environmental and Human Security Handbook for the Anthropo-cene (GEHSHA) addresses new security threats, challenges, vulnerabilities and risks posed by global environmental change and disasters. In 6 forewords, 5 preface essays 95 peer reviewed chapcountries analyse in 10 parts concepts of military and political hard security and economic, social, environmental soft security with a regional focus on the Near East, North and Sub-Sahara Africa and Asia and on hazards in urban centres. The major focus is on coping with global environmental change: climate change, desertifi­ca­tion, water, food and health and with hazards and strategies on social vulnerability and resilience building and scientific, international, regional and national political strategies, policies and measures including early warning of conflicts and hazards. The book proposes a political geo-ecology and discusses a ‘Fourth Green Revolution’ for the Anthropocene era of earth history.