“Natural hazards risk assessment” - Which natural hazards? Risk to what or whom? When? Where? And over what time period?

In the mid-1980s researchers at Macquarie University began struggling with some of these questions at a time when “risk”, to most users, referred not to “financial risk” but to a rather nebulous concept involving “hazard” and “vulnerability”.

Now, nearly twenty years later, we are a lot older and a tad wiser. This report briefly describes the construction of the natural hazards database and comments on issues of data quality, and then focuses on: (i) qualified answers to the questions above; (ii) ways in which the data have been and could be used; and (iii) some thoughts on where natural hazards risk assessment in Australia should head from here.