While the impacts of disasters are objective, risk perception varies based on group priorities. For instance, the cost of replacing property after an earthquake is only important for those that own property. During the Risk Agreement stage these different views of risk are considered.
Aimed at transforming the objective Impact Metrics calculated in the previous stage, into a co-produced subjective definition of “Agreed Risk”, Tomorrow’s Cities experts re-engage the stakeholders who participated in previous stages of the TCDSE - who have a diverse knowledge base, perspectives, and social backgrounds - in a series of workshops. During these workshops, they engage in interactive discussions to review the results of the Computational Risk Model, assess how the Visioning Scenarios will be impacted by hazards, identify changes in the Visioning Scenarios that lead to lower hazard impact and identify social issues that might undermine the implementation of those changes.
The Risk Agreement activities tackle the following questions:
- Why is your Visioning Scenario impacted (drivers of impacts)?
- How to reduce these impacts (potential policy modifications)?
- How realistic are the policy modifications to the Visioning Scenarios (implementation challenges)?
Ultimately, the list of potential policy modifications aimed at reducing risk, can be used as input for a new iteration of the TCDSE. The identified modifications may be incorporated into new digital urban scenarios and retested against hazard events. This ongoing cycle seeks to improve the future by minimizing risk, enhancing the understanding of effective governance methods, and ultimately supporting evidence-based decision-making.
The process empowers different actors and social groups to actively participate in risk-informed decision making for the urban space, directly addressing the need for local involvement in disaster risk reduction set out in numerous policy documents.
