ABSTRACT
Disaster risk construction (DRC) is a set of processes that generates, increases, or fails to prevent or reduce vulnerabilities and hazards. Some drivers influence the location, pace of change, magnitude, and intensity of DRC. There is consensus among several authors about the impact of some of these drivers, such as population dynamics, poor land use, including unchecked urbanization, skewed distribution of access to land and other resources, corruption or poor governance, and environmental degradation. Greater clarity can be achieved if one returns to the definition of DRC and its drivers, putting DRC under the lens provided by ordinary language interrogatives: What? How? By whom? When? Where? Why? There are intentional and unintentional disaster risk construction factors. Elite or special interests provoke or allow changes in society, nature, and their interactions in ways that create new and emergent hazards. Misuse of power increases vulnerability to hazards and undermines ability to cope with hazards. Assumptions about control over resources, choices, and opportunities may be manipulated by powerful groups in their own interest. DRC can result from hazard manipulation, decrease, or blockage of people’s capacity to cope with risk, increase in vulnerability, and/or reduction of risk mitigation policies and practices by governments.
