Classical statistical methods for flood frequency estimation assume that flooding characteristics do not change over time. Recent focus on climate change has raised questions of the validity of such assumptions. Near-rural catchments are used to focus on climate change (not land use change), investigating the sensitivity of trend estimates to record period. Some key statistics were very sensitive, but conclusive spatial patterns were not found. Smaller floods were most affected by these trends.

This is the largest scale sample survey (N = 1021) on tsunami risk perception in the Mediterranean and the first one in Italy. Data provide relevant material to ground risk communication strategies. Risk perception is affected by education level, gender and possibility of accessing reliable scientific sources. People’s understanding of tsunamis is affected by TV images of past catastrophic events in Asia, but might lead to underestimate the risk posed by small tsunamis, more likely to occur.

Lahars are fast moving mixture of volcanic debris and water propagating downslope volcanoes that can be very dangerous for people and properties. Identification of lahar source areas and initiation mechanisms is crucial to comprehensive lahar hazard assessments. We present the first rain-triggered lahar susceptibility maps for La Fossa volcano (Vulcano, Italy) combining probabilistic tephra modelling, slope-stability modelling, precipitation data, field characterizations and geotechnical tests.

This paper reports the results of a post-tsunami field survey conducted in the disaster area of 28 September 2018 Sulawesi, Indonesia. It provides evidences covering run-up heights, inundations, tsunami arrival times, damage characteristics, and landslides. The results can be used for validation of hydrodynamic models and they contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the Sulawesi tsunami. Besides, they are important for regional reconstruction, mitigation, planning, and development.

Identifying landslide hazards continues to be challenging but important for understanding risks. We combine benefits from modeling landslide hazards from observed landslides and site characteristics, with modeling based on physical mechanisms such as soil moisture. Integrating these two approaches improved landslide hazard mapping by accounting for processes not captured by the physically-based model. We demonstrate our approach in Washington, USA, to provide landslide hazard maps for managers.

Wave runup is important for characterizing coastal vulnerability to wave action, however it is complex and uncertain to predict. We use machine learning with a high-resolution dataset of wave runup to develop an accurate runup predictor that includes prediction uncertainty. We show how uncertainty in wave runup predictions can be used practically in a model of dune erosion to make ensemble predictions that provide more information and greater predictive skill than a single deterministic model.

The coupled National Water Model (NWM) – Height Above Nearest Drainage flood mapping methodology provides the basis for operational flood forecasting across the continental United States. This paper evaluates how the method performs for 30 case studies using a historic archive of flood extents and a retrospective run of the NWM. We provide a summary of the results and discuss where the method is performing reliably; the general reasons for poor forecasts; and how the method might be improved.

It is known that fragility functions reflect localities (building design standard and topography) and flow velocity is more important as the damage might occur before the flow depth reach its maximum value. This research demonstrate that it is possible to accurately predict building damage by considering related forces including resistant force based on building design standard with high accuracy. This method will be useful for damage assessment in areas having no experience of damaging tsunami.

Drought is a major natural hazard in the Bolivian Altiplano that causes large losses to farmers. Here, precipitation and temperature were used to predict agricultural droughts. In addition, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to simulate quinoa and potato yield. And, the NDVI was used to target specific drought hotspot regions. A significant decrease of crop yields can be expected during positive ENSO phases. The study findings can be used for disaster risk management.

Flooding is the most destructive natural disaster on Earth. Satellite and airborne imagery are commonly used for flood monitoring and response. While these remote sensing techniques are effective at providing the extent of flooding these cannot be used to infer the depth of flood water. This paper describes and analyzes version 2.0 of the Floodwater Depth Estimation Tool (FwDET). FwDET 2.0 offer enhanced calculation algorithm for coastal regions and much-improved run time.

Portugal is recurrently affected by large wildfire events. We present a statistical model to estimate the probability that the summer burned area exceeds a given threshold. The model allows making outlooks of wildfire potential with up to one month in advance of the fire season. When applied to the 39-year period 1980–2018, only one severe (one weak) year is not anticipated as potentially severe (weak). The model will assist the fire community when planning prevention and combating fire events.

Typhoons are one of the most serious natural disasters that occur annually on China's southeast coast. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the typhoon hazard using typhoon wind hazard modeling and simulation methods. This paper describes a technique for analyzing the typhoon wind hazard based on the empirical track model. Existing simplified and non-simplified typhoon empirical track models are improved. Besides we investigate the influence of different factors on the predicted wind speed

The Caribbean and Central American region is both tectonically active and densely populated, leading to a large population that is exposed to earthquake hazards. Until now, no comprehensive fault data covering the region has been available. We present a new, public fault database for Central America and the Caribbean that synthesizes published studies with new mapping from remote sensing, to provide fault sources for the CCARA seismic hazard and risk analysis project and to aid future research.

Mechanized skiing operations use an established process to select skiing terrain with a low risk level. However, the relationship between acceptable skiing terrain and avalanche hazard conditions has only received limited research attention. Our study examines this relationship numerically for the first time and shows the effects of avalanche hazard, previous skiing and previous acceptability on different types of skiing terrain and offers the foundation to develop evidence-based decision tools.

Coseismic landslides often cause great loss of lives and properties in the seismic zone. Accurately mapping the hazards is a very important and challenge work. This paper considers the roughness and size effect of the potential sliding surface-unloading joint, incorporates the seismic hazard analysis of the study area, and then presents an improved method of Newmark analysis for mapping hazards of coseismic landslides. The approach is well verified by M_w 6.1 Ludian earthquake in 2014.

This is the first scientific report of the flash flood of 20 August 2018 on Raganello Gorge (Southern Italy), an extreme event with rather specific features (very localized in space and time), which unfortunately caused 10 victims. The meteo-hydrological dynamics were well reconstructed and the forecasting skills were evaluated using an innovative modelling approach, including fully coupled atmospheric-hydrological modelling and improved representation of Sea Surface Temperature.

We quantified the impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria on the PTWC tsunami warning capability for the Caribbean region after accounting for hurricane-related seismic station outages. Within the eastern Caribbean region the hurricanes exacerbated outages to an astonishing 82 % of the available 76 stations. This resulted in up to 02:33 and 04:33 extra minutes added to the earthquake detection and response times, effectively knocking out PTWC's local tsunami warning capabilities in the region.

We conducted a pre-fire assessment of post-wildfire hazards to identify, at the countywide scale, areas at risk of post-wildfire flooding and debris flows, to quantify the severity and extent of those risks within two study areas, and to identify mitigation opportunities to reduce risks. Flood and debris-flow hazards were identified countywide and present significant risks within the study areas. Several identified mitigation measures have been implemented, or are planned, to reduce risks.

Flood frequency curves are usually highly uncertain since they are based on short data sets of measured discharges or weather conditions. To decrease the confidence intervals, an efficient bootstrap method is developed. With this method, the data set of measured discharges of the Rhine river could be extended with approximately 600 years. The study shows that flood events decrease the confidence interval of the flood frequency curve significantly, specifically in the range of large floods.

Based on stability charts proposed by Perrotti et al. (2018), preliminary assessment of stability/instability of underground quarries in soft carbonate rocks is discussed with reference at six case studies of underground artificial cavities, including three affected by sinkhole failures in the past and three in stable conditions at present. When underground quarries are suitably surveyed and mapped, a quantitative assessment of the stability conditions is possible.

Large-scale risk assessments can be improved by a more direct relation between the type of exposed building and the impact of floods. Compared to the common land-use-based approach, our model reflects heterogeneous structures and defines building-material-based vulnerability classes. The approach is particularly interesting for areas with large variations of building types, such as in developing countries and over large-scales, and how it can be used to distinguish risk in urban and rural areas.

Flood events are often complex in their origin and dynamics which should be represented in models aiming at simulating past and future events. However, it is often the case that models are designed for one specific purpose, hampering holistic flood simulations. To overcome this, we developed GLOFRIM 2.0 which allows the user to combine several models in a plug-and-play manner. It is then possible to couple models depending on the envisaged purpose and with varying complexity.

Debris flows in Great Britain have caused damage to infrastructure, buildings, and disruption to businesses and communities. This paper outlines a methodology incorporating expert judgement and environmental factors to derive a debris flow susceptibility map for Great Britain. This spatial dataset provides a useful tool for policy-makers, developers and engineers, and can support development action plans and risk reduction strategies at the regional or national scale.

In this paper, a fast monitoring and real time precursor predication method is proposed to build the early warning systems for specific landslide. The fast monitoring network in this system uses ad-hoc technology to build rapid site monitoring network consist of Beidou terminals. The real time precursor predication method based on the KF-FFT-SVM model is conducted to fulfil precursor early warning of in short time. This system improves the robust and early warning efficient of traditionaly LEWs.

Many of the rapidly expanding cities around the world are located near active tectonic faults that have not produced an earthquake in recent memory. But these faults are generally small and so most previous seismic hazard analysis has focused on large more distant faults. In this paper we show that a moderate size earthquake on a fault close to the city of Santiago in Chile has a greater impact to the city than a great earthquake on the tectonic boundary in the ocean about a 100 km away.

This paper presents AGRIDE-c, a new conceptual model for the estimation of flood damage to crops, and its application in North of Italy. The model (developped with the support of agronomists and economists by means of a what-if analysis) can support more reliable assessments of the economic effectiveness of flood risk mitigation measures, and the implementation of more resilient damage alleviation practices by farmers.

For the 11 western US States we addressed gaps in existing wildfire risk assessments that do not explicitly considered cross-boundary fire transmission among major landowners and do not identify the sources of fire for the exposed communities. Stochastic wildfire simulation outputs were post-processed in a geo-spatial framework. Our methods can be implemented across different regions of the world to inform fire management agencies decisions on the locations of future fuel management projects.

This paper presents an update of the tsunami catalogue of New Caledonia within the framework of the tsunami hazard assessment project TSUCAL. It provides 25 events for the last decade, leading to a number of 37 tsunamis triggered by earthquakes reported in New Caledonia since 1875. It is a topic of great concern for modellers looking for real case data to set up potential scenarios and decision-makers to constrain hazard management including the evacuation processes in case of a tsunami.

We developed a novel approach in using Bayesian Networks (BN) for ensemble flood forecasting in a case study in Iran. This allows fast early warning without the need for hydrological modelling. We recommend to combine precipitation ensembles with hydrological initial conditions in the BN. The number of observed flood events is low by nature for training data based methods. BN outperformed Artificial Neural Networks with good results. Future work will validate the concept in other basins.