ABSTRACT
Most of the highly populated cities all over the world, (but also a large amount of little towns and villages) are prone to natural hazards. Natural hazards are defined as processes, occurring in the biosphere that may constitute a damaging event. The main hazardous catastrophes are earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, tsunamis, coastal erosions, floods, hurricanes, drought, etc. With regards urban areas, both wild and man-induced fires can be also considered. Consequently, the disaster risk DR (probability of harmful consequences, expected loss of lives, people injured, property, livelihoods, economic activity disrupted, environment damaged, etc., see Figure 1) results from the combination between hazard H, vulnerability V (human condition or process resulting from physical, social, economic and environmental factors, determining probability and scale of damage from the impact of a given hazard) and physical exposure E (elements at risk, an inventory of those people or artifacts exposed to hazards), divided by the RM factor (Risk Management).
