Many parts of the world are at significant risk of natural and man-made disasters. Modern industrial practices, dependencies on critical infrastructures make countries further vulnerable to not only a wide range of natural disasters but also serious man-made disasters. These factors, combined with increased population densities and property development in hazard zones, have heightened countries' disaster risks as follows: (1) Natural disasters, include typhoons, cyclones, hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, drought, wildfires, earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, ice storms, and dust storms that all contribute to disease epidemics. (2) Man-made disasters, include critical infrastructure threats, oil and chemical spills, building fires, mechanical equipment explosions, and terrorism. TC 3.2 of Strategic Theme 3 lays special emphasis on integrated risk management for roads with expanded research into risk assessment, decision-making processes, reductionof risk and risk management tools. More specifically TC 3.2 has the threeterms of reference: introduce risk management techniques in the road sector; introduce risk management for mega-projects; improve highway systems security. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Samenvatting