Risk and vulnerability mapping are among the fundamental requirements for long term management and mitigation of disasters. However such information needs to be collected and updated regularly, a task that is best done locally. In  addition, risk and vulnerability are associated with micro-scale changes which can only be accurately recorded using appropriate survey methods. This workshop, spread over two sessions across three months, covered a range of  participatory as well as field survey ing techniques on risk and vulnerability mapping. The participants were entirely from nongovernmental organisations working in in disaster prone areas in Tamil Nadu and the exercise was supported by the Disaster Risk Management component of the UNDP-UNTRS programme.