government officials that have access to hazard information will make informed decisions on
hazard mitigation matters (Pearce 2003).
2.2.4 Hazard disclosure
Natural hazard disclosure is a concept that aims to inform potential buyers of property in a
hazardous area about the risks that are involved with living at that location. The goal is not
only to inform people but also to discourage them from settling in a high-risk area (Beatley &
Berke 1992). The idea behind hazard disclosure is that if people are informed about the risks
and fully understand them they will hopefully decide to search for a less hazardous location,
thereby reducing growth in high-risk areas. If they would decide to settle at the hazardous
location, it is their own responsibility to mitigate hazards or to accept the potential losses that
may occur in case of an hazard event. However, in most cases where natural hazard disclosure
is used in practice, it is only used as an awareness tool without any responsibility consequences
of settling in a hazardous area attached to it. Hazard disclosure leads to a more practical
problem: in order to decide whether certain property lies in a hazard zone or not, reliable
hazard maps on a parcel scale are necessary. These are often not available or of poor quality
because creating hazard maps of good quality is costly and requires a high level of technical
knowledge.
2.2.5 Financial policies
Governments can use several types of financial impulses in order to direct development away
from hazardous areas, or to compensate for expenditures made to mitigate hazards.
Unfortunately the most used financial tool, disaster relief, only achieves the exact opposite.
Disaster relief aims to compensate damages inflicted by natural disasters. This way, citizens
can recover from a disaster and rebuilt their property. This may sound as a friendly gesture, but
it has some negative side-effects. Disaster relief is usually sustained by a high level of
government. Decisions on local natural hazard mitigation policies are made by local
governments, who in most situations also bear the costs of these mitigation measures.
Mitigation is expensive, and the knowledge that community members will be compensated for
possible disaster losses often encourages local government not to mitigate the hazards and even
to develop previously undeveloped hazardous lands. From the local government perspective,
this is the most cost-effective decision, even though it includes exposing community members
to high levels of risk. Therefore, disaster relief is often referred to as ‘subsidizing risk’ (Burby
e.a. 1999, Godschalk 1999).
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