Methods for assessing risk from climate hazards in urban areas

Abstract

This paper describes methodologies for assessing risk at conurbation and neighbourhood scales that have been developed in order to provide urban planners with a toolkit for the assessment of risk due to climatic hazards. The methodologies treat risk as a function of hazard, vulnerability and exposure, all three of which elements are influenced by climate change. These three elements are represented as geospatial data layers in a geographical information system (GIS), in order to provide a logical framework to assist planning and management for communities that are safer, more sustainable and more resilient in the face of climate change. The risk assessment methodologies have initially been developed and applied at two different scales: a conurbation scale, using a screening process to locate areas of high risk to assist with land use planning tasks, and a neighbourhood scale, focusing on the influence of the vulnerability of the building stock on this risk. However, using the two methodologies in tandem c...