ABSTRACT
Managing hazards and disasters in large urban areas pose significant challenges, in large part due to the complex social and physical infrastructure fabric of these areas. This chapter explores the nature of large urban areas and proposes an approach to assessing potential damage from large hazard events to the urban fabric. A modification of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework is presented as a way to break down the complexity of the urban fabric and provide a basis for mapping social and physical infrastructure of large urban areas with results that can be used to improve support to affected populations. The proposed process is expected to yield better results than the conventional sectoral-based assessment of disaster impacts and can be used before disasters to improve resilience and disaster planning.
