Natural Hazards

Joining the dots: From overlooked disaster impacts to inclusive disaster risk reduction

Harriet Thompson September 7, 2026

Reconstruction of the Char Narayana Temple following the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, as documented in the Patan Museum, Lalitpur, Kathmandu Valley (Image credit: Harriet Thompson, August 2026).

A note from the Natural Hazards Division editorial team We would like to open this blog post with our sincere condolences in response to the devastating multi-hazard flash flood that occurred in Nepal and Tibet in late August. In the face of such suffering, messages like this risk sounding hollow. Still, we, as the Natural Hazards Division editorial team, wish to express our solidarity with all fa ...[Read More]

Practical Use of Natural Hazard Monitoring Systems during Escalating Risk Scenarios

Robert Noyes August 18, 2026

Mountain hazard regimes are fundamentally shifting. There is consensus not just among concerned scientists, but practitioners of risk management, that mountain hazard regimes are affected by warmer temperatures and intensifying precipitation events. The effects of these changes are further amplified by increasing population density in known hazard zones; with more infrastructure and human settleme ...[Read More]

When multiple hazards interact and the data doesn’t: The multi-hazard modelling problem nobody wants to talk about

Pablo Lopez Filun June 15, 2026

Image credit: ChatGPT (Open AI)

There is a quiet contradiction at the heart of natural hazard science. The regions most exposed to multi-hazard events are precisely the regions where we know the least. The Global South (comprising lower- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean) is disproportionately affected by climate-related natural hazards, yet it is largely underrepresented in climate res ...[Read More]

Knowing better, but still losing more: why disaster risk reduction breaks down

Sven Fuchs, Konstantinos Karagiorgos, Margreth Keiler, Lars Nyberg, Maria Papathoma-Köhle and Annemarie Polderman May 11, 2026

Image generated using ChatGPT 5.4

The surviving house in Pacific Palisades became one of the most discussed images from the 2025 California wildfires (Fig. 1). What makes it scientifically interesting, though, is not that it survived. It is that many of the features associated with the house’s survival – a more fire-resistant exterior, stronger windows, and details that reduce ember entry – are already well known. This case points ...[Read More]