Development of Disaster Resilient Coastal Communities to Enhance Economic Development and Social Welfare: Book of Abstracts

Coast at risk – the importance of risk knowledge
Coastal communities all over the world are under severe pressure resulting from planned and
unplanned development, population growth and human induced vulnerability, coastal hazards
with increasing frequency and magnitude and impacts of global climate change. These
unprecedented changes have increased the level of risk of such coastal communities from a wide
range of coastal hazards arising from natural phenomena and human induced activities. In this
respect the assessment and management of risk for coastal hazards plays a vital role for safety of
human lives, conservation of ecosystems and protection of the built environment. It leads to the
development of disaster resilient communities to enhance economic development and social
welfare.
Risk assessment is one of the fundamental first steps towards planning, improving and
implementing effective disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. One has to know and
identify risks if they are to be effectively reduced and contained. There is a need to develop
simplified approaches to risk assessment to convince a wider stakeholder base that investing in
risk assessments pay. Such approaches bring together so many members of civil society leading the
efforts to make disaster risk reduction everyone’s business.