Based on the articles, the factors that affect disaster risks can be categorized into three broad areas :
Hazards: These are events that can cause damage. They can be natural (like earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, cyclones, extreme temperatures, floods, or droughts), biological (like disease outbreaks including human, animal, and plant epidemics and pandemics), technological (like chemical and radiological agent release, explosions, and transport and infrastructure failures), or societal (like conflict, stampedes, acts of terrorism, migration, and humanitarian emergencies)1.
Exposure: This refers to the presence of people, livelihoods, environmental services and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places that could be adversely affected .
Vulnerability: This is the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt .
In addition to these, there are underlying disaster risk drivers or factors that include poverty and inequality, climate change and variability, unplanned and rapid urbanization, and the lack of disaster risk considerations in land management and environmental and natural resource management . Other compounding factors include demographic change, non-disaster risk-informed policies, the lack of regulations and incentives for private disaster risk reduction investment, complex supply chains, the limited availability of technology, unsustainable uses of natural resources, declining ecosystems, pandemics, and epidemics .
