Risk management against indirect risks from disasters: A multi-model and participatory governance framework applied to flood risk in Austria

This paper aims to illuminate the issue that most countries’ disaster risk management approaches remains centered on mitigating the direct effects of disasters. It does so by proposing and empirically testing how existing risk management frameworks designed for direct risks could be expanded to encompass indirect effects as well.

The authors created and use a framework to manage indirect risks in a collaborative process for dealing with major flood risk in Austria. They test specific challenges and explore ways to integrate the management of these indirect risks in a complex real-world scenario. The paper's findings suggest that linking indirect and direct risk management can be achieved with relatively modest effort. A precise systems definition proves particularly beneficial in this regard, as it can link disaster risk related dimensions with non-disaster related targets. This approach thereby opens up the possibility to explicitly include multiple dividends in the decision-making process about indirect risk management strategies.