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Policy responses to disaster risk197and livelihoods. This gap has been filled in some neighbourhoodsby community-based hazard and risk mappingprojects. This data, combined with national- and city-levelrecords of past events, can be used to identify priorities forurban planning and construction standards.Less information is available at the global scale forhazards that affect the lifelines to a city such as drought, oremerging hazards such as heat and cold shocks. Global-scaledata can be used to extend analyses of hazard exposurebeyond the municipal boundary to demonstrate the vulnerabilityof cities to disasters affecting their hinterland bydisrupting trade, or blocking access and flows of resourcesand waste.■ Mapping human-made hazardNational directories of human-made hazards are becomingmore common, and many are open to the public. In the UK,the Environment Agency hosts a pollution and hazardouswaste sites inventory. This is searchable by postal code andalso provides information on water quality and flood hazard. 8In the US, Green Media’s Toolshed website includes asearchable scorecard, which provides data on chemicalsbeing released from any of 20,000 industrial facilities, or asummary report for any area in the country. 9 More difficultis the mapping of human-made risk associated with industrialfacilities, buildings’ integrity or transport infrastructure.Much of the information needed to build comparativehazard datasets is commercially valuable and therefore notreleased to the public.Local authority land-use planning maps and schedulesinclude information on industrial sites where hazardousactivities are undertaken, and can be used as a basis forurban industrial hazard mapping. This is particularly valuablefor assessing the risk of human-made disasters caused bynatural hazards. More difficult is the acquisition of data oninformal-sector industrial activities, such as tanneries orfireworks factories. These might not represent a significanthazard individually; but, in aggregate, unplanned industrialactivity is a major risk to health from air, water and groundpollution and from fire and explosion hazards. Risk is heightenedbecause of the unregulated nature of informalindustrial activity and its close proximity to densely settledresidential areas.Risk assessments for individual citiesAs noted in Chapter 7, there is limited comparative data onnatural disaster risk and impacts at the city level. Two initiativeshave made major contributions at this level of analysis –namely, the Natural Hazards Risk Index for Megacities byMunich Re (see Chapter 7) 10 and the Earthquake DisasterRisk Index used by GeoHazards International (GHI).GHI developed and applied an Earthquake LethalityEstimation Method in 2000/2001. The method producesresults that indicate the relative severity of earthquake risk,the sources of risk within each city, and the relative effectivenessof potential mitigation options. The same results arealso produced for the exposure of school children to collapseof educational buildings. The method was applied to cities inBox 8.2 Estimating urban loss of life to earthquakesGeoHazards International’s (GHI) Earthquake Lethality Estimation Method estimates thenumber of lives that would be lost if all parts of a city experience earthquake shaking at a levelthat has a 10 per cent chance of being equalled or exceeded in 50 years. The method has beenapplied to assess the risk of life loss in 22 cities in the Americas and Asia. Deaths caused bybuilding collapse, earthquake-induced landslides and fires are included. Capacity for organizedsearch, rescue and emergency medical care is also considered. Results are validated over timethrough a comparison of estimates with actual loss. GHI’s approach is especially noteworthybecause of its emphasis on the safety of school children, which reflects the vulnerability ofschools.Data is collected through meetings with local experts and city officials dealing withseismology, soils and landslides; city planning; building inventory; school buildings; emergencyresponse; medical emergency preparedness; hospital emergency preparedness; and firepreparedness.Results show great variation in the risk of earthquake-induced loss of life in cities. Forexample, in the American region, a person living in Mexicali is almost three times more likely tobe killed by an earthquake than a person living in Quito, and about ten times more likely than aperson living in Santiago. In the Asian region, a person living in Kathmandu is about nine timesmore likely to be killed by an earthquake than a person living in Islamabad and about 60 timesmore likely than a person living in Tokyo.GHI’s approach is also able to identify differences in the immediate causes of death and,thus, guide the subsequent development of mitigation strategies and policies. For example, in acomparison between Delhi and San Salvador, while most of the deaths in Delhi will be due tobuilding collapse and earthquake-induced fires, an important fraction of the deaths in SanSalvador will be due to earthquake-induced landslides.The analysis of school risk also shows differentiated vulnerability across cities. A schoolchild in Kathmandu is 400 times more likely to be killed by an earthquake than a school child inKobe and 30 times more likely than a school child in Tashkent.Source: GHI, 2001the Americas and Asia, differentiated by city size (see Box8.2).The philosophy of GHI is that loss estimation is both aprocess and a product. The process aspect engages decisionmakersat the community and city levels and recognizes thatdata alone is insufficient to effect change in human behaviour.The process of assessment includes local expertise andfavours rapid assessment that can feed into ongoingdecision-making over possibly more accurate, but also morecostly and less participatory, methods. Readily available informationis supported with data from local experts. The finalresults allow a quantitative assessment of the effectivenessof mitigation options under consideration.Including indicators for social vulnerability in riskassessment at the city level is difficult since it requires theavailability of relevant data on population and social indicators.For instance, research on risk of heat waves in Londonhas used census data and is appropriate for those countriesthat have spatially disaggregated and high-quality censusdata. 11 In the majority of cities, especially those that arerapidly expanding in poorer countries, this is not a reliablesource of data. Other methods, such as the use of satelliteinformation on night-time lights and fires, offer an alternative,but still not comprehensive, measurement ofpopulation density in rapidly expanding and poor cities.Comparison of disaster risk between districts within acity has rarely been undertaken. One example of this…there is limitedcomparative data onnatural disaster riskand impacts at thecity level