Incorporating Future Earthquake Risk in Disaster Risk Management

Factors such as the increase in the global population, economic growth, climate change, and aging infrastructure are contributing to the increase in the impact caused by earthquakes. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the dynamic nature of earthquake risk, current disaster risk management is mostly informed by static risk information. Consequently, risk reduction strategies might rapidly become obsolete, insufficient, and inadequate to properly address disaster risk. We assessed how the three main components (hazard, exposure and vulnerability) of earthquake risk are expected to evolve in the future, and how those changes will impact the trajectory of earthquake risk for the forthcoming decades. We used machine learning algorithms and remote-sensing datasets between 1975 and 2015 to perform these projections for the country of Montenegro. Such analysis allows identifying the drivers of earthquake risk, and how risk reduction measures can be designed and implemented to achieve specific risk reduction targets.