Abstract
Causing damage to human well-being, ecosystems, infrastructure and disrupting entire economies, disasters continue to undermine sustainable development. Reducing the impacts of natural hazards and identifying pathways towards resilient societies hence remains a global priority. Understanding and assessing the drivers, patterns and dynamics of risk associated with single or multiple hazards is a necessary precondition for the identification, planning and implementation of targeted disaster risk reduction (DRR), risk transfer and climate change adaptation (CCA) policies, strategies and solutions. This realisation is reflected in key international agreements of the post-2015 agenda (e.g. the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement) as well as the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism and the European Agenda on Security – all of which include an explicit or implicit call for risk assessments. This subchapter provides an overview of current risk assessment concepts (Section 2), highlights the relevance of a transdisciplinary perspective when assessing risk (Section 3) and presents approaches to tackle the complex nature of risk (Section 4). Furthermore, it emphasises the need to analyse and communicate uncertainties as part of the risk assessment process as well as the essential role of risk communication to support disaster risk management.