Disaster risk indicators in Brazil: A proposal based on the world risk index

Abstract

The DRIB Index- Disaster Risk Indicators in Brazil - provides a tool to help assess, visualise and communicate different levels of exposure, vulnerability and risk in Brazil. The index may sensitise public and political decision-makers towards the important topic of disaster risk and climate change adaptation. This article aims to explore the feasibility and usefulness of such a national risk index that considers both natural hazard phenomena and social vulnerability. The exposure to natural hazards was assessed by using four indicators that describe the exposure of people towards landslides, floods, droughts and sea level rise. Whereas vulnerability dimension consists of susceptibility, coping capacity and adaptive capacity was calculated on the basis of 32 indicators which comprise social, economic and environmental conditions of a society. The county comparison provides an initial ranking of exposure and vulnerability. Specific analysis of coping and adaptation capacities also indicates that risk or vulnerability are not pre-defined conditions, but rather are constructed by societies exposed to natural hazards.The results of the DRIB Index were mapped and classified by means of a GIS system to show different patterns of exposure, vulnerability and risk on global scale. The national perspective of risk clearly shows that the vulnerability of a society or a country is not the same as exposure to natural hazards. The information provided by the DRIB Index highlights the need for preventive measures towards Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in the country as a whole, but also at regional and local scales. The results showed that the risk is strongly interwoven with social-economic and cultural conditions and normal everyday life, as well as with the performance of state institutions dealing with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), in other words, vulnerability. Spatial trends of disaster risk and vulnerability, products of this research, also have stressed the serious social inequalities between and within regions of the country, which result in barriers to the development of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)in Brazil as a whole.