ABSTRACT
In evaluating disaster risk, the social production of vulnerability needs to be considered with at least the same degree of importance that is devoted to understanding and addressing natural hazards. Expressed schematically, our view is that the risk faced by people must be seen as a cross-cutting combination of vulnerability and hazard. Disasters are a result of the interaction of both; there cannot be a disaster if there are hazards but vulnerability is (theoretically) nil, or if there is a vulnerable population but no hazard event. 1
