Evidence-based disaster risk management: A scoping review focusing on risk, resilience and vulnerability assessment

Abstract

A plethora of methods exist to aid decision-making in mitigating disaster risk, many of which fall into the categories of risk, vulnerability and/or resilience assessment methods. The objective of the present study is to provide an overview of these methods, with a particular focus on evidence that supports their practical implementation. A scoping study of scientific literature reveal 97 distinct methods. Despite the growing interest in publishing new methods, there seems to be a lack of focus on demonstrating their effectiveness in practice. The few contributions that do include some forms of evaluation typically do so by comparing the method's output with disaster data, by contrasting it with the output of other methods, by having experts evaluate the structure of the method, or by testing the method in practice and evaluating its usage. To further strengthen the relevance of research on this topic, increased attention should be paid to this matter. A good starting point would be to use the ways of evaluation identified in this study and systematically present evidence regarding the practical usefulness of methods for risk, vulnerability and/or resilience assessment.