As of January 2006 the RMS program has changed to the Risk and Vulnerability program.

Each year there are more than 700 major “natural” catastrophic events, and direct economic losses have increased 14-fold since the 1950s. While most of the economic losses are in the developed world, disasters impose the largest burden on developing countries, where estimates show the number of human victims and economic losses as a percent of GDP are far greater. Despite these serious impacts disasters have frequently been perceived as “acts of God” and overlooked in policy planning. Recognizing that after-the-fact approaches for dealing with disasters are unsustainable in the long run, the policy paradigm has recently been shifting towards a more comprehensive approach that emphasises ex-ante measures taken before the disaster happens.

RMS now occupies an internationally recognized niche in carrying out applied, interdisciplinary research for the purpose of reducing the vulnerability of developing and transition countries to the economic impacts of extreme events. Specifically, RMS, is developing tools for the financial management of disaster risk by central governments. Methodologically, this includes sophisticated stochastic simulation and optimization methods and economic modeling. Decision-support tools including user interfaces are being put to use, and a recent World Bank-funded workshop brought policy makers from finance and interior ministries to IIASA for training in financial risk management. RMS is in the unique position to continue this line of research in close collaboration with policy makers in developing and emerging-economy countries.

Finally, there is interest on the part of the climate-change community in innovative ideas for reducing the vulnerability of disaster-prone, developing countries, and this research is already proving useful in identifying vulnerable countries and suggesting novel instruments for pre-disaster support.

The description of RMS work in this field is structured around the following subprojects:

For more information, contact Reinhard Mechler

Responsible for this page: Karolina Werner
Last updated: 24 Feb 2011