In this study, engineers and social scientists explore opportunities for improving the utility of flood hazard maps through focus groups with end users. Focus groups revealed that end users preferred legends that describe flood intensity both quantitatively and with qualitative reference points, as well as flood scenario descriptions that describe the magnitude (rather than frequency) of the flood. Illustrations of pluvial flooding, or flooding caused directly by rainfall, were highly desired.

We developed fragility functions of aquaculture rafts and eelgrass based on damage data and numerical simulation of the 2011 Great East Japan tsunami. These fragility functions explain damage characteristics of both items against tsunami flow velocity. By understanding these characteristics, damage estimation and loss assessment as well as marine/fishery disaster mitigation plan and management in other areas of the world from future tsunamis can be implemented.

The vast majority of shallow landslides and debris flows are precipitation initiated and predicted using historical landslides plotted versus observed precipitation information. However, this approach has severe limitations. This is partly due to the fact that it is not precipitation that initiates a landslide or debris flow but rather the hydrological dynamics in the soil and slope. We propose to include hydrological information in the regional hydro-meteorological hazard assessment.

This paper provides a full range of possible future sea levels on a regional scale, since it includes extreme, but possible, contributions to sea level change from dynamical mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. In contrast to the symmetric distribution used in the IPCC report, it is found that an asymmetric distribution toward high sea level change values locally can increase the mean sea level by 1.8 m this century.

It is well known that volcanoes and earthquakes are associated, and some active volcanoes cause damaging earthquakes. Nonetheless, volcanoes usually are not pinpointed on a hazard map, as the effects of shallow, volcanic earthquakes can be overshadowed by stronger tectonic earthquakes in the region, particularly when long exposure periods are considered. In this study we faced some challenges with software implementations and original concept scheme for an original PSHA at Mt. Etna, Italy.