Risks vs Hazards
What is the difference between a risk and a hazard? What is the difference between a hazard analysis and a risk assessment? Why do we use these differing terms and how do they relate to each other and the emergency management planning process? These questions will be answered in the following sections of this topic.
In the context of emergency risk management, 'risk' has a very specific meaning, and is defined as follows:
'the chance of something happening that will have an impact upon objectives. It is measured in terms of consequences and likelihood. (In emergency risk management - a concept used to describe the likelihood of harmful consequences arising from the interaction of hazards, communities and the environment.' (Emergency Management Australia (2000), Emergency Risk Management Applications Guide.)
This is the definition of risk that we will be using in this subject. Other definitions you may find used within the context of emergency risk management and risk management include:
- 'the chance of something happening that will have an impact on objectives - risk may have a positive or negative impact.' (Standards Australia/ Standards New Zealand (2004), AS/NZS 4360/2004 Risk Management. )
- 'expected losses (of lives, persons injured, property damaged, and economic activity disrupted) due to a particular hazard for a given area and reference period. Based on mathematical calculations, risk is the product of hazard and vulnerability.' (Standards Australia/ Standards New Zealand (2004), AS/NZS 4360/2004 Risk Management.)
Hopefully you will have realized that the two terms, risk and hazard, are very closely related. As EMA's Emergency Risk Management Applications Guide (2000) highlights, hazard is synonymous with "source of risk". The guide also states 'Identifying risk requires a detailed investigation of the characteristics and interaction of the hazards, the community and the environment, which form the basis of the problem to be solved' (EMA, 2000). From these two discussions we can see that risks result from the interaction of hazards and the community and environment, and in order to identify the risk one must firstly identify and analyse the hazards.
Read
Textbook: Emergency Management Australia (2000) Emergency Risk Management Applications Guide, pages 1 - 6.
This reading will complement and support the previous explanations relating to risk and provide an introduction to the section on risk analysis that follows.