Annex 2: Efforts to Estimate Exposure in Cities
Studies have estimated the magnitude of urban exposure to natural hazards and climate change impacts, yet none to date have integrated exposure of population and of economic assets, as well as the impacts of natural hazards and climate change at the urban scale. While these approaches have their own limitations in rigorously quantifying aggregate vulnerability to climate and natural-hazard impacts given the high degree of complexity and uncertainty, they provide a useful macro-level look at risk and exposure in cities. Below is a brief discussion of five studies, along with key findings, that have attempted such rankings. Each approaches urban risk from a different angle, covering different sets of cities, different types of hazards, different timeframes, and different asset measurements. That being said, all approaches confirm that such risk is increasing and that with the increasing manifestations of climate change, the risk will significantly worsen in the coming decades.
OECD Study on Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vulnerability to Climate Extremes1 The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published an index ranking 136 port cities with populations over 1 million with high exposure to 1-in-100-year, surge-induced floods. The index looks at the exposure
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