DRTSS Learner Knowledge flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Disaster risk formula

Risk is often expressed as hazard multiplied by exposure multiplied by vulnerability. Reducing any factor reduces risk, even when the hazard itself cannot be modified.

Hazard versus exposure

A hazard is a potentially damaging event or trend; exposure is the people, assets, and systems located in areas that hazard can affect. Neither alone constitutes risk.

Resilience definition

The ability of a system to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform, and recover from hazard effects while maintaining essential functions, according to UNDRR usage.

Extensive versus intensive risk

Extensive risk comes from frequent low-severity events with localized impacts; intensive risk comes from rare high-severity events affecting large areas and causing concentrated losses.

Return period

The average interval between events of a given magnitude. Annual exceedance probability equals one divided by return period, so a 100-year event has a 1% annual chance.

Risk matrix

A grid plotting likelihood against consequence to rank risks. Cells require explicit thresholds for each rating, otherwise ratings are inconsistent between assessors.

Annual average loss

The expected loss per year from a hazard, calculated as the sum of losses from events of different return periods weighted by their probabilities. Used to compare risk across hazards.

Cascading hazard

A hazard triggered by another hazard, such as an earthquake causing landslides or a cyclone causing storm surge. Multi-hazard assessment must account for these chains.

Sendai Framework

The 2015-2030 global DRR agreement with four priorities and seven global targets, covering natural and man-made hazards, and emphasizing risk governance and Build Back Better.

Sendai Priority 4

Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to Build Back Better in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction, including testing plans and improving reconstruction standards.

Sphere Standards

Minimum humanitarian response standards covering water, sanitation, shelter, health, and food security. They set quality benchmarks for response delivery rather than for pre-disaster risk reduction.

ISO 31000 process

A generic risk management cycle: establish context, identify, analyze, evaluate, treat risk, then communicate and monitor. It is adapted for disaster risk rather than being disaster-specific.

Early warning components

Four linked elements: risk knowledge, monitoring and forecasting, dissemination and communication, and response capability. A missing element breaks the entire warning chain.

Impact-based forecasting

Translating hazard forecasts into expected impacts on people and assets. It supports actionable warnings rather than hazard-only statements such as rainfall amounts or wind speeds.

Trigger threshold

A pre-agreed hazard level, such as rainfall accumulation or river gauge height, that activates specific actions by named decision-makers under anticipatory action protocols.

Last-mile dissemination

Delivering warnings to at-risk people through redundant channels such as SMS, sirens, radio, and volunteers, because single channels fail during power or network outages.

Incident Command System

A response management structure with command, operations, planning, logistics, and finance sections, keeping supervisor span of control typically between three and seven subordinates.

Cluster approach

Sector-based coordination groups such as shelter, WASH, and health, each with a lead agency, activated to coordinate response while national authorities retain primary responsibility.

Rapid needs assessment

An initial multi-sector assessment conducted within hours to days of a disaster to establish scale and priority needs, later replaced by detailed sector assessments.

Damage versus loss

Damage is destruction of physical assets, a stock measure. Loss is change in economic flows such as production, income, and service delivery over a period after the event.

Post-disaster needs assessment

A government-led assessment estimating damage, losses, and recovery needs across sectors, used to mobilize financing and plan reconstruction after a major disaster.

Owner-driven reconstruction

Households receive grants and technical assistance and manage their own rebuilding. It is usually faster and more context-appropriate but requires strong technical oversight and inspection.

Build Back Better

Restoring infrastructure and systems to higher resilience standards after a disaster rather than to pre-disaster condition, reducing vulnerability to future hazards.

Climate maladaptation

Action that reduces vulnerability in one place or time while increasing it elsewhere or later, such as levees that encourage development in floodplains.

Ecosystem-based adaptation

Using mangroves, wetlands, and forests to buffer hazards such as coastal surge and flooding. It is often cheaper than engineered defenses and provides additional livelihood benefits.

Climate risk screening

Checking a project or plan against current and projected climate hazards before approval, then adjusting design so infrastructure and services remain functional under future conditions.

Loss and damage

Impacts not avoided by mitigation or adaptation, addressed under the Warsaw International Mechanism. Financing arrangements for these impacts remain politically contested.

CBDRM definition

A participatory process in which communities identify, analyze, and manage their own disaster risk, with external actors facilitating rather than directing the process.

Community risk mapping

A participatory tool where residents map hazards, vulnerable households, assets, and evacuation routes, producing locally owned information that formal data often misses.

Inclusive DRR

Removing barriers faced by persons with disabilities, older persons, women, children, and minorities in warning, evacuation, shelter, and recovery through universal design and participation.

Disaggregated data

Data broken down by sex, age, disability, and income. It reveals differential risk within a community that aggregate figures conceal and is a precondition for inclusive planning.

Sendai Framework Monitor

The online system where countries report indicators against Sendai targets on mortality, affected persons, economic loss, and infrastructure damage, using standardized loss data.

SMART indicators

Indicators that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, each with a baseline, target, data source, and responsible party for monitoring.