Reclassifying historical disasters: From single to multi-hazards

Lee, Ryan; White, Christopher J.; Adnan, Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani; Douglas, John; Mahecha, Miguel D.; O'Loughlin, Fiachra E.; Patelli, Edoardo; Ramos, Alexandre M.; Roberts, Matthew J.; Martius, Olivia; Tubaldi, Enrico; van den Hurk, Bart; Ward, Philip J.; Zscheischler, Jakob

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169120

Cited by 15 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…In the context of planning under deep uncertainty, Schlumberger et al, (2022a) propose the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathway for Multi-Risk (DAPP-MR), guiding the development of forward-looking disaster risk management pathways that account for interrelationships between hazards and sectors. Further examples of recent development are the new open-source tool for characterising the spatiotemporal occurrence of multi-hazards proposed by Claassen et al, (2023) and the reclassification of historical datasets from EM-DAT from single to multi-hazards by Lee et al (2024) , which could both bring much-needed clarity to the types of hazard interrelationships relevant to a certain geography. Moreover, there is a growing literature on various aspects of multi-hazard risk assessments, such as applications of different methodologies in specific geographical contexts (e.g., Tocchi et al, 2023, Mladineo et al, 2022, characterisation of vulnerability and associated dynamics in multi-hazard scenarios (Drakes and Tate, 2022;Albulescu and Armas, 2024), and enhanced understanding of multi-hazard impacts (Gentile et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges in Assessing and Managing Multi-Hazard Risks: A European Stakeholders' Perspective

Sakic Trogrlic,

Reiter,

Ciurean

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Recent findings indicate an increasing frequency of multiple hazards and their interrelationships (such as triggering, compound, and consecutive events) across Europe, highlighting the urgency for resilience enhancement. This shift demands a transition from focusing solely on single-hazard risks to embracing multi-hazard risk assessment and management strategies. Despite substantial progress in understanding these complex events, the predominant approach still concentrates on individual hazards (like floods, earthquakes, droughts), with a relatively narrow grasp of the actual needs of stakeholders on-site. Addressing this gap, our study aims to explore the challenges of shifting towards multi-hazard risk management from the viewpoint of European stakeholders. Through five workshops conducted in various European locations (Danube Region, Veneto Region, Scandinavia, North Sea, and Canary Islands) and a specialized expert workshop, we pinpoint five key challenges: governance issues, understanding of multi-hazards and multi-risks, current disaster risk management practices, bridging scientific knowledge to policy and practice, and the lack of data. These challenges are interdependent and must be approached comprehensively, as the legacy of existing practices presents a significant obstacle in moving from single-hazard to multi-hazard risk management. Looking ahead, we identify several promising strategies to address some of these challenges, including novel methods for multi-hazard characterization, a unified terminology, and an all-encompassing framework to guide multi-hazard risk assessment and management. We advocate the necessity to broaden our perspective beyond natural hazards, incorporating other types of threats for a more complete multi-hazard risk understanding, and to integrate multi-hazard risk reduction within broader developmental objectives.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges in Assessing and Managing Multi-Hazard Risks: A European Stakeholders' Perspective

Sakic Trogrlic,

Reiter,

Ciurean

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Multi-hazard events include more than one hazardous activity within a specific geographic area and time period [7,8]. In these scenarios, risk components such as exposure and vulnerability may experience alterations, causing a profound impact on communities, infrastructure, and heritage in urban or rural areas, resulting in notably higher economic losses compared to single-hazard events [93,94].…”

Section: Multi-hazard Interactions: Change Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The absence of a global standard for classifying multi-hazard interrelations [94,95] emphasizes the persistent challenges in this domain. However, it also provides an opportunity for comparison among diverse authors.…”

Section: Multi-hazard Interactions: Change Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whether occurring as a single or multi-hazard event, drought has been identified as the leading cause of mortality, contributing to 36% of the 33 million fatalities resulting from the 16,535 disasters recorded worldwide between 1900 and 2023 [94]. Meteorological droughts, characterized by their extended duration, can induce considerable temperature elevations as soil moisture decreases [96].…”

Section: Multi-hazard Interactions: Change Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changing Conditions: Global Warming-Related Hazards and Vulnerable Rural Populations in Mediterranean Europe

Graus,

Ferreira,

Vasconcelos

et al. 2024

Urban Science

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Human-induced climate change has profound effects on extreme events, particularly those linked to global warming, such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires. These events disrupt ecosystems, emphasizing the imperative to understand the interactions among them to gauge the risks faced by vulnerable communities. Vulnerability levels vary primarily based on a community’s resources. Rural areas, especially in the Mediterranean region of Europe, are experiencing acute depopulation, creating a complex situation affecting various aspects of society, from economic declines to cultural heritage loss. Population decline in rural regions weakens resources, leading to the abandonment of built environments, fostering desertification, and elevating the risk of wildfires. Communities undergoing this deterioration process become exceptionally vulnerable, especially when dealing with and recovering from extreme natural phenomena. This review offers insights into the dynamics of these hazards and the predominant challenges in rural areas. By focusing on a topic that has received limited attention, the aim is to inform future research initiatives, ultimately improving risk assessment and mitigation strategies for these vulnerable communities.

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“…On one hand, several databases collect information worldwide on different natural hazard/disaster, thus providing a direct view on the impacts. This includes EM-DAT, NatCatSERVICE from Munich Re or Sigma from Swiss Re (Kron et al, 2012;Wirtz et al, 2014;Lee et al, 2024). Another type of loss datasets are indices combining meteorological variables and insurance aspects, like storm severity indices (Klawa and Ulbrich, 2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Insurance loss model vs meteorological loss index – How comparable are their loss estimates for European windstorms?

Moemken,

Alifdini,

Ramos

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Abstract. Windstorms affecting Europe are among the natural hazards with the largest socio-economic impacts. Therefore, many sectors like society, economy or the insurance industry are highly interested in reliable information on associated impacts and losses. There are different metrics to quantify windstorm-related losses, ranging from simple natural hazard databases over loss indices based on meteorological variables to more complex insurance loss (catastrophe) models. In this study, we compare estimated windstorm losses using the meteorological Loss Index (LI) with losses obtained from the European Windstorm Model of Aon Impact Forecasting. To test the sensitivity of LI to different meteorological input data, we furthermore contrast LI based on the reanalysis dataset ERA5 and its predecessor ERA-Interim. We focus on similarities and differences between the datasets in terms of loss values and storm rank for specific storm events in the common reanalysis period across 11 European countries. Our results reveal higher LI values for ERA5 than for ERA-Interim for all of Europe, coming mostly from a higher spatial resolution in ERA5. The storm ranking is comparable for Western and Central European countries for both reanalyses. Compared to Aon’s Impact Forecasting model, LI ERA5 shows comparable storm ranks. However, LI seems to have difficulties in distinguishing between extreme windstorms with high losses and those with only moderate losses. The loss distribution in LI is thus not steep enough and the tail is probably on the short side, yet it is an effective index, precisely because of its simplicity, suitable for estimating the impacts and ranking storm events.

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Reclassifying historical disasters: From single to multi-hazards

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Challenges in Assessing and Managing Multi-Hazard Risks: A European Stakeholders' Perspective

Challenges in Assessing and Managing Multi-Hazard Risks: A European Stakeholders' Perspective

Changing Conditions: Global Warming-Related Hazards and Vulnerable Rural Populations in Mediterranean Europe

Insurance loss model vs meteorological loss index – How comparable are their loss estimates for European windstorms?

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