NERAG intentionally supports people whose role encompasses all the dimensions of emergency management and the assessment of emergency events that have the potential to trigger disasters and impose significant social, environmental and economic costs on Australia.
Risks from emergency events are the focus of NERAG. These are events, actual or imminent, that endangers or threatens to endanger life, property or the environment, and requires a significant and coordinated response. NERAG provides a method to assess risks from all hazards and its outputs are intended to help prioritise risk management and mitigation activities.
NERAG is not intended to to be used as a method to assess emergency operational response risks nor to present a comparative, multi-hazard understanding of all risks to a community. Separately specific risk assessment techniques are being or have been developed for detailed analysis of individual hazards as they relate to all aspects of safety and wellbeing of communities. NERAG looks to be complementary to such processes.
Importantly, NERAG does not address systemic (disaster) risks. Systemic risks are risks that could trigger severe instability or collapse of an organisation, industry, economy or system (Australian Government Department of Home Affairs 2019).