Vulnerability, resilience, hazard, risk, damage, and loss: a socio-ecological framework for natural disaster analysis

Evaluating socio-economic losses due to natural disasters is a challenging task because of the combined complexity of the social and ecological systems affected. However, also under pressure from the expected effects of climate change, evaluating the socio-economic costs of natural catastrophes has become a vital need for policy makers, urban planners, and private agents (such as insurance companies and banks). This paper suggests a general framework encompassing all the important concepts which should be taken into account by the above agents in the assessment of natural disasters. In particular, we propose a simple and consistent set of relationships among vulnerability, resilience, hazard, risk, damage, and loss which can guide socio-economic assessment.