Hazard, Risk & Vulnerability Assessment (HRVA)

HRVA is the foundation of any emergency response plan. Understanding hazards, vulnerabilities and risks help the clients to establish priorities. We need to prepare emergency plans to reflect the assessment of the relative risk of occurrence, and the potential impact, of emergencies or disasters on people and property.

HAZARD= Potentially damaging physical event

VULNERABILITY = Susceptibility of the community to the impact of the hazard, based on the physical, social, economical and environmental factors

RISK= Probability of harmful consequences or expected loss

RISK ASSESSMENT = T0 determine the nature and extent of risk

When conducting an HRVA, it is important to not only consider the hazard, but its frequency or likelihood and its consequence. Even though a hazard may be highly likely to occur, its consequences may be minimal. Similarly, a hazard event that is unlikely to occur may have severe consequences. To fully assess the consequences of a hazard event, significant consideration of the various vulnerabilities is required

The objective of undertaking a HRVA is primarily to anticipate the potential problems and possible solutions to help to save lives, protect property, assets, reduce damage and facilitate a speedy recovery.

It is worthwhile to mention that HRVA is a means towards becoming disaster resilient and is not an end in itself. HRVA is a critical part of the disaster risk reduction program and it has the potential to help the necessary authorities to prepare for emergencies.

EGSS  provides HRVA that helps  the policy makers, administrators and the community to make risk based choices to address vulnerabilities, mitigate hazards, and prepare for response to and recovery from hazard events.

Apart from the central government, the state governments, district authorities and even the local level governance institutions (like municipalities and village panchayats) can undertake hazard risk and vulnerability analysis based on their respective locations vis-à-vis hazards.