Deliverable D1.1 - Evaluation and SOTA Summary Report (CPAs)

Deliverable 1.1, as the first output of Work Package 1, provides the knowledge base for RiskPACC on the topics of disaster resilience, vulnerability, and risk perception as well as how these terms are operationalized by civil protection authorities. The aim of this work is to explore the following:
1. Review the state of the art of disaster resilience and risk perception concepts and methodologies in research, practice and policy, and investigate how these have evolved.
2. Establish an appropriate working definition of disaster resilience and risk perception and determine how, as concepts, they have been tailored and operationalized in practice through existing resilience, risk management and crisis guidelines, standards, requirements, and approaches
Following the introduction and overview of the deliverable, the report is divided into four sections, with Sections 2-4 focused on resilience, vulnerability, and risk perception and Section 5 exploring how these topics related to the risk perception action gap (RPAG).
In Section 2, disaster resilience is examined from an academic perspective, exploring the different uses across disciplines and the evolution of the term throughout history. The use of resilience in disaster risk management, including the exploration of the term in both literature and practice, is then examined. Building on this base of knowledge, EU-funded projects and defintiions from International Organizations are explored, leading to the following working definition for RiskPACC:
The ability of an individual, community, region, or country to resist, adapt to, and recover from the impact of a hazard, either natural or anthropogenic. Enhanced resilience can be embedded in activities in all stages of the disaster cycle, and includes positive transformation that strengthens the ability of current and future generations to adapt to future crises, and to survive and thrive as conditions change.
Following the development of the definition for RiskPACC, how CPAs have operationalized the term is explored, looking at examples from the UK, Japan, Netherlands, and the US. Issues that have arisen from operationalizing the term are also discussed.
Section 3 explores vulnerability and the use of the term in disaster risk management. This section examines the evolution of the term throughout history, and explores definitions and current uses. From the exploration of definitions, a working definition is created:
“[t]he conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards.