Factsheet: Social vulnerability to disasters

Abstract

The impact of disasters understood as extreme events that cause great damage, destruction, and human suffering is not the same on all people. Disaster losses are only at first sight the result of the respective events. At second sight, they are reflections of human vulnerabilities that arise from physical, social, economic, and political conditions and inequalities that have little to do with the event itself. The concept of social vulnerability to disasters highlights these differences in disaster risk. This factsheet serves three main purposes: First, it offers a brief overview of the concept's meaning and of the central topics currently discussed in both research and policy. Second, it demonstrates the important link between social vulnerability and more established concepts such as risk and resilience, and shows the added value of a social vulnerability perspective in all phases of the disaster/risk management cycle. Finally, it aims to encourage a discussion on social vulnerability in Switzerland, since such a debate is de facto absent to date. It offers a number of practical recommendations on how a social vulnerability perspective can complement ongoing initiatives and processes in risk assessment and disaster management.