Every physical representation of risk reveals, and at the same time promotes, a particular conception of the nature of risk and our ability to understand and confront it. One cannot but feel concerned, therefore, at the tendency to present as “risk maps” what are in truth spatiotemporal depictions of hazards, generally natural.

Although such a misclassification may not always be deliberate, it plainly discourages a "totalizing", holistic, or systemic view of disaster risk. Reinforcing the belief that disasters are nothing more than “consummated hazards”, it hinders the integrated planning and execution of risk management measures.

A systemic view of disaster risk has not been easy to achieve, and it is still embraced half-heartedly by many. Nevertheless, it has already established beyond a doubt that individual risks are but a particular form of the total risk that a concrete society is exposed to, and which is the result of a dialectical relationship between (not merely the sum or multiplication of) hazards and vulnerability in specific environmental contexts.

Given the complexity and high level of abstraction of this dialectic, the first question that must be asked is whether disaster risks can be mapped at all - that is, depicted cartographically. If the answer were no, it would be much more sensible to stop referring to .risk maps. and employ the more realistic term “hazard maps” or “natural hazard maps”. On the other hand, if risks can indeed be mapped, new questions arise. Due to space limitations, I will only address one: What is being represented by these risk maps?

In order to provide a systemic or holistic answer, the first step must be to discard that widely, almost stubbornly held presupposition that hazards are those aspects of risk that are external to us, while vulnerability is its human or social dimension.

Natural phenomena and the hazards they may generate are not at all the same thing, even if it is difficult to grasp this -- particularly in the case of especially violent phenomena such as earthquakes or hurricanes. But the potential (“hazardous”) effects of these phenomena will always depend on how they interact with specific human populations and how they concatenate with other environmental processes taking place at the same time. The influence of the presence and actions of human beings is even more of a determinant in the case of so-called socio-natural or anthropic (man-made) hazards. This rupture with the immediacy of natural hazards is implicit in the application of a systemic perspective to the mapping of specific hazards. In such cases, we can easily recognize that information strictly related to natural phenomena is insufficient to represent actual processes involving multiple social practices and living conditions.

Not only that. Hazards, whatever they may be, cannot be reduced to their physical materiality. They are part of the social production of reality, and therefore always include a subjective dimension. They become problems when they are recognized as such by specific, collective actors. In order to relate them to their potential effects, it is essential to know how they are mentally represented by people at risk and what attributes they associate with them, such as their nature, spatiotemporal location, interrelationships and dynamics.

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Something similar occurs with vulnerability. As has already been done in Latin America and the Caribbean,1 it is possible to assemble conceptual vulnerability models based on the correct identification of certain economic, social, institutional, political, educational and cultural factors and develop from them indicators generating data that can be spatially represented. What is important here is not to confuse poverty and vulnerability assessments,2 or the researcher’s point of view with the mental processes of the collective actors under study. 3 Also necessary is an awareness of the limitations of factorial vulnerability analysis, since vulnerability is a systemic process that cannot be explained exclusively based on the aggregation of factors.

Based on the above, we can see that the spatial representation of risk produces several objects of analysis, each of which has its own purposes and methodological framework. Such objects can be disaggregated through the employment of various criteria. They can be also be recombined in many different ways. But they will always require a theoretically grounded interpretation. Some of these objects as enumerated in Table 1.

Table 1 - Disaster risk maps

Several information elements may occupy a particular place in any of the analytical objects mentioned in the table, and will serve to establish relationships among them -- especially those referring to the spatial location of hazardous conditions, fixed assets, and the areas most likely to be affected, as well as those resources needed for emergency response, reconstruction and rehabilitation. Finally, the user’s perspective will have to be carefully taken into consideration when defining the communicational qualities of the resultant map (level of abstraction, symbols used, and so on).

Bibliography

1 Among others, cf. Alicia Minaya’s paper in Maskrey, 1998. (Bibliographical references are included at the end of this paper.)
2 Poverty is the most fertile ground for vulnerability assessment, but would not represent vulnerability directly.
3 This tends to happen when vulnerability assessment, employ a methodology that is not authentically participatory.
4. Among many other available definitions, Díez (1999:49) suggests the following: “A GIS is a set of tools for the adquisition , starage, analysis, and editing of spatial information that is structured internally as a database management system for geo-referential data.”

References:

• Díez, Andrés (1999). Utilización de los SIGs en el análisis del riesgo de inundación en el Alto Alberche (Cuenca del Tajo). [Use of GIS in Flood Risk Analysis in Alto Alberche (Tajo Basin).] In Laín (1999).
  
• Felpeto, Alicia (1999). Modelos de simulación numérica en el estudio del riesgo volcánico. Aplicación a la isla de Tenerife. [Numeric Simulation Models in the Study of Volcanic Risk: The Case of Tenerife Island.] In Laín (1999). (The author, from a vulcanological perspective, stresses that risk maps, strictu sensu, would fall between .danger maps. (based on vulcanological studies) and administrative maps, which are produced by"reviewing and assessing the vulcanological map from the point of view of disaster reduction.") Laín, Luis (ed.) (1999). Los sistemas de información geográfica en los riesgos naturales y en el medio ambiente. Madrid: Instituto Tecnológico Geominero de España, Ministerio del Medio Ambiente.
  
• Maskrey, A. (ed.) (1998). Navegando entre brumas. [Navigating through the mist.] Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) and Latin American Social Studies Network for Disaster Prevention (LA RED). (See especially Chapter 2.)
  
• Perrin, Pierre (1996). Disasters and Development. In ICRC, War and Public Health, Geneva. (The author provides us with a highly dialectical view of the basic conditions required for too little rain to lead to drought, erosion, etc., and the other conditions.socio-economic, environmental and political.that need to be in place before public health is affected.)

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