Denis Cohen

Recent innovations in hazard and risk analysis

Risk to people and properties commonly derives from different types of dangerous phenomena, either natural or man-made. The potential worth of loss depends on vulnerability of the exposed elements at risk, and on worth of these latter. Vulnerability generally refers to heterogeneous sets of elements and should be analysed by considering both actual and expected conditions, in terms of exposure and of potential effects on economic activities, environmental education and availability of authorities for forecasting and monitoring. Furthermore, the probability of occurrence (hazard) of a given type of phenomenon must be evaluated within a specific zone and temporal frame of interest. The above factors are all needed to assess the overall risk, but they can be very difficult to measure. If different types of dangerous phenomena threaten a given site, or when cascading effects are expected, the evaluation of the combined risk is required, with overlapping and