Mapping elements at risk from global to local level: the capabilities of remote sensing now and in the past

Abstract

For a comprehensive and accurate risk assessment of multiple disaster types, understanding of both hazard and vulnerability components is essential. While the definition of hazards is well understood in today’s scientific community, vulnerability still presents an ill-structured concept as it is both hard to define but also essential to measure for a comprehensive risk analysis due to the large-scale extent of human activities and thus exposed elements on our planet (Taubenböck et al., 2008). A definition that is exhaustively used for the term exposure in the earthquake and landslide risk community describes elements at risk, which are understood as objects potentially adversely affected such as people, properties, infrastructure or economic activities) (Geiß & Taubenböck, 2012). In this context, remote sensing holds great potential for the large-scale capturing of elements at risk on various spatial scales and the quantification and analysis of associated vulnerability indicators.