Hazard risk is managed across the disaster cycle through prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery at multiple scales.

What this dot point is asking

Once a hazard and its risk are understood, the geographic task is to manage that risk so harm is reduced. Management is usually organised around the disaster management cycle, which moves through prevention and mitigation before an event, preparedness ahead of an anticipated event, response during and immediately after, and recovery in the longer term. The most cost-effective management focuses on the before phases, because reducing exposure and vulnerability in advance saves far more than reacting after a disaster.

Prevention is concerned with the long-term and aims to avoid the risk altogether, for example by prohibiting building on floodplains or in high bushfire-risk zones through planning controls. Mitigation reduces or eliminates the impact if the hazard does occur, for example fuel-reduction burning to lower bushfire intensity, levees and improved drainage for floods, building codes and retrofitting for earthquakes, and seawalls or managed retreat for coastal hazards. Preparedness involves actions taken before advance notice to build the capacity of communities to respond and recover, including early-warning systems, evacuation plans, emergency services training, public education and stockpiling resources.

Response is the immediate action during and just after an event: issuing warnings, evacuating, search and rescue, emergency relief and restoring essential services. Recovery is the longer process of rebuilding infrastructure, restoring livelihoods and supporting community wellbeing, ideally building back better so future risk is lower. Effective management links these phases so that lessons from recovery feed back into prevention and mitigation.

Tasmania provides detailed examples. Bushfire management combines prevention (planning controls limiting development in extreme-risk areas), mitigation (fuel-reduction burning by the Parks and Wildlife Service and brigades, and rapid remote-area firefighting to protect Gondwanan vegetation), preparedness (the statewide Total Fire Ban system, the Australian Fire Danger Rating System, community bushfire-ready plans and the message to leave early), response (the Tasmania Fire Service and emergency broadcasts) and recovery (rebuilding and support after major fires). Flood management after the 2016 floods involved warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology, levee and drainage works in some towns, and planning reviews of floodplain development. Coastal hazard management increasingly weighs hard structures against planned retreat as sea levels rise.

Management operates across scales, which determines the levers available. Local councils control land-use planning and emergency arrangements; state governments run fire and emergency services and set building standards; national bodies coordinate disaster funding and meteorological warnings; and global cooperation, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, sets shared goals and shares knowledge. Each scale faces different constraints of funding, authority and political will.

For TCE assessment, organise your answer around the management cycle, match strategies to the specific hazard and place, and evaluate them against explicit criteria. Use a detailed Tasmanian case such as bushfire alongside a global example, and recognise that climate change is expanding risk, so management must adapt rather than rely on historical patterns.