They establish both a common point of departure and the bounds within which plans and alternatives can be formulated, debated, and decided on. Several federal, state, and local agencies as well as private sector and academic institutions have devoted significant efforts to the process of hazard identification. The USGS has been involved in the assessment of seismic risk since 1976. The NFIP has been identifying and mapping flood hazard areas since 1969, storm surge and wind decay models have been developed to characterize the impact of hurricanes, and efforts to produce increasingly more accurate maps depicting earthquake hazards are ongoing.
Risk assessment is a more complex undertaking.
Currently there are two general methodologies used for risk assessment. The first method, which is the standard method, is used to estimate the actual losses from a natural or human disaster. The second group of risk assessment approaches is implemented to provide important information on the nature and level of risk in a given region but that does not yield loss estimates. One of these approaches is referred to as the Risk Matrix Approach . In this chapter, a brief discussion and application to Clay County is provided.