ABSTRACT
Depending on alternative descriptive futures, scenario analysis has helped in planning disaster risk management (DRM). It can be useful in policymaking. Practical assessment of risk and vulnerability requires reliability of the gathered information. Including the perception of communities about concerns that relate to them is significant for DRM. Several factors often result in uneven exposure to hazards, leading to high vulnerability and low coping capacity. ‘Risk perception’ can be an instinctive judgment in the context of limited and uncertain information. It provides insight into how people behave during a natural hazard. If people perceive risk to be ‘threatening’, they take necessary measures: showing that risk perception determines behaviour of a society. Therefore, risk perception is relevantly valuable. Chronic uncertainty of risk also shapes risk perception and impacts the behavioural decisions. This complex system needs to be understood. The pressure points that may be associated with any disaster - including the surrounding risks - need to be explained to the community. This paper will attempt to study certain CBDRM cases from India, to establish that by understanding chronic uncertainty and risk perception, priorities of DRM and vulnerabilities can be identified for resource allocation and better implementation of DRM.
