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CLIMATE CHANGE, DISASTER RISK, AND THE URBAN POOR
BOX 3.1
Urban Risk Assessment The Urban Risk Assessment (URA) is a flexible approach that facilitates improved understanding of a city’s risks from disasters and climate change, which has been developed by the World Bank in partnership with GFDRR, UNEP, UN-HABITAT, and others. It is a somewhat standardized cost-effective tool intended to harmonize how information is gathered and analyzed related to disaster and climate risk at the city level, and to identify areas and populations that are most vulnerable. The URA is based on three main pillars: institutional, hazard impact, and socioeconomic assessment. For each pillar, there are three levels of assessment: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The URA allows for customization in how it is applied, depending on need, available resources, institutional capacity, available information, and time. Through a phased approach, where each assessment level is linked to progressively more complex and detailed tasks, city managers may select the appropriate series of components from each pillar that individually and collectively enhance the understanding of risk in a given city. The approach is structured to integrate both rapid onset events, such as floods or landslides, which are more typically the purview of the disaster risk- management community, and slow onset hazards, such as drought or sea level rise typically associated with a longer-term change in climate trends. URA
oo tt an m
pa cit y
secondary data requirements
ca
ag
ive
em en
pt
n
da
ba
na
teritiary data requirements
ba
ls
ur
c o m p l e x i t y
c o s t
ur
66
primary/baseline data requirements institutional assessment
hazard assessment
socioeconomic assessment
The urban risk assessment is ideally undertaken as a part of a cycle of assessing risk, developing and implementing risk-management plans, monitoring, and reviewing over a planning cycle. The URA has been used by the four cities of the Mayor’s Task Force. Source: Dickson, Baker, Hoornweg, and Tiwari. (2012).