Definition: Exposure
The situation of people, infrastructure, housing, production capacities and other tangible human assets located in hazard-prone areas.
Annotation: Measures of exposure can include the number of people or types of assets in an area. These can be combined with the specific vulnerability and capacity of the exposed elements to any particular hazard to estimate the quantitative risks associated with that hazard in the area of interest.
Cite this
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). 2017. The Sendai Framework Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction. "Exposure". Accessed 26 April 2025. https://www.undrr.org/terminology/exposure. [Copy citation]
About the terminology
The Open-ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group on Indicators and Terminology (OIEWG) relating to disaster risk reduction was established by the General Assembly in its resolution 69/284 for the development of a set of possible indicators to measure global progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, coherent with the work of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators. The report was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on February 2nd, 2017.
The Sendai Framework Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction promotes a common understanding and usage of disaster risk reduction concepts and to assist the disaster risk reduction efforts of authorities, practitioners and the public.
