Problem:
It is well documented in disasters literature that the impacts of any hazard, in this case hydrometeorological hazards, are due to a combination of three factors (United Nations 2009): 1. the hydrometeorological hazard: process or phenomenon of atmospheric, hydrological or oceanographic nature that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage, 2. the exposure: people, property, systems or other elements present in hazard zones that are thereby subject to potential losses, and 3. the vulnerability: the characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard. The interplay of these three components determines whether or not a disaster results (Field et al. 2012). As we usually choose to base the event trigger and definition on severe societal impacts of a natural hazard, rather than the purely physical nature of the extreme event, it is critical to also analyse trends in vulnerability and exposure in order to put the attribution results in context. Our analyses therefore include drivers that have changed exposure as well as vulnerability (which includes the capacity to manage the risk). Due to the complexity of assessing changes in vulnerability and exposure as well as the persistent lack of standardized, granular (local or aggregated) data (Field et al. 2012), usually only. Need Assignment Help?