Risk and vulnerability analysis in society’s proactive emergency management: Developing methods and improving practices

Abstract: Risk and vulnerability analyses can play important roles in the society’s proactive emergency management. This thesis addresses two ways of improving the analysis of risk and vulnerability analysis in this context. First, by developing methods for risk and vulnerability analysis of technical infrastructure networks and emergency response systems. Secondly, by aiming to improve practises related to RVA through an evaluation of Swedish municipal RVAs and an empirical study of how various disaster characteristics affect people judgments of disaster seriousness. The research has to a large extent been carried out by using a design research approach developed in the thesis.