Scheduled special issues
The following special issues are scheduled for publication in NHESS:
C
Fresh water is a key resource for human life, natural and agricultural ecosystems, and many aspects of societal and economic systems. Climate change will affect the availability and the quality of fresh water particularly, through altering the characteristics and frequency of extremes such as droughts and flooding. This in turn puts the functioning of water-related sectors and ecosystem services at risk. This special issue focuses on water-related risks in the Berlin–Brandenburg region. Submissions related to new natural hazard detection, monitoring and modelling, vulnerability and risk assessment, and the development and implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies, as well as economic, societal, and educational aspects, are welcome. All contributions should have a focus on the specific regional setting of the Berlin–Brandenburg region, but authors are encouraged to draw connections and extrapolate findings that may have wider relevance outside the specific area.
Potential topics will include, but not be limited to:- Vulnerability of human-environment systems to water-related hazards and availability of good quality water.
- Sustainable water resource management and solution for making human-environment systems more resilient to water-related hazards.
- Forms of governance to cope with emerging challenges and how solutions can be implemented.
- Public awareness, legal issues, administrative constraints and appropriate adaptation practices.
Review process: all papers of this special issue underwent the regular interactive peer-review process of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences handled by guest editors designated by the NHESS executive editors.
D
end the drought in drought researchand asked for more support to better identify and prepare for drought disasters (Padma, 2019). Preparing for future drought requires a thorough understanding of the complexities of systemic drought risk and adaptation feedbacks, effective drought risk management, and good communication of the risk and potential adaptation options. In the special issue on
Drought, society, and ecosystems, we aim to showcase the diverse interdisciplinary research being done on the interactions between drought, ecosystems, and people (including human-induced climate change and management).
We solicit contributions (commentaries, review articles, original research articles) from different perspectives on this interdisciplinary topic from research scientists of different fields, students, practitioners, and stakeholders. It will be a unique opportunity to further our understanding of drought risk, adaptation, and feedbacks. The co-listing of this special issue under the Copernicus journals Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS), Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS), Geoscience Communication (GC), and Biogeosciences (BG) allows for more diversity in perspectives.
Abstracts that fall under one of the following (or related) themes will be considered:
- drought risk analysis
- drought impact attribution
- water security in diverse contexts
- drought risk management and communication
- co-creation of drought information services
- drought in (socio-)ecological systems
- drought and the food–water–energy–environment nexus
- influence of human activities on drought hazard
- socio-hydrology of human–drought interactions
- drought and vulnerability (in ecological and/or social systems)
- drought adaptation (in ecological and/or social systems)
- climate change impacts on drought/water security.
Manuscripts with diverse authorships and with case studies in different geographic regions are especially welcomed. The special issue arises from the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Panta Rhei working group Drought in the Anthropocene
and aims to showcase the research done on drought–society–ecosystem interactions during the IAHS Panta Rhei decade (2013–2023). However, unsolicited contributions are also highly encouraged. The guest editors aim for diversity and balance in contributions and authors, encouraging researchers from countries underrepresented in science, women, and minorities to contribute to this special issue.
References:
UNDRR: GAR Special Report on Drought 2021, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, ISBN 9789212320274, 2021.
Padma, T.V.: African nations push UN to improve drought research, Nature, 573, 319-320, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02760-9, 2019.
I
Global as well as local processes (including feedback loops across scales) may enhance or suppress hazard intensities and impacts. Additionally, differential rates of climate change and varying levels of societal preparedness also drive the varying distributional impacts of such events. This calls for novel systemic approaches to assess the indirect and intangible impacts – especially the interplay of hazards and their impacts on health and society after events. This trans-disciplinary topic requires insights into spatial and temporal changes in the dynamics of vulnerability (e.g. socioeconomic and demographic characteristics) in the context of cascading or compound impacts, which is often lacking in conventional risk assessments.
This special issue (SI) welcomes papers dealing with this complex context with a special focus on (but not limited to) the following:
- assessing indirect impacts of natural hazards, including acute, slow-onset, or a combination of concurrent and cascading hazards;
- intangible impacts beyond the
standard
direct monetizable losses (e.g. disruption of critical services and supply, business interruption, loss of irreplaceable items or ecosystem services); - impacts on physical and mental health and (future) health impacts of long-term exposure to climatic stressors and adaptation to prevent adverse health outcomes;
- impacts on specific population groups (e.g. socially vulnerable groups), differential vulnerability, and impacts on healthcare systems;
- exploring novel data and methods for mapping temporal and spatial social vulnerability (e.g. machine learning, spatial disaggregation techniques) and analysing temporal and spatial dynamics in social vulnerability (both observed changes and future changes).
L
After a 5-year hiatus, the International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW), the largest snow-avalanche-focused science meeting in the world, is taking place again this autumn. This year’s conference is taking place in Bend, Oregon, from 5–13 October 2023. Building on the tradition of previous ISSWs, we take this opportunity to compile a special issue that summarizes the latest developments in snow science and avalanche risk management research.
We invite all ISSW presenters interested in a peer-reviewed scientific publication to submit manuscripts that explain their research in more detail than in the conference proceedings. To be considered, these papers need to be scientifically more rigorous, which means that they contain expanded technical information, additional details on methods, and a more complete description of results and conclusions.
Avalanche risk management is an inherently interdisciplinary challenge that requires an in-depth understanding of both the natural phenomenon and the people interacting with that hazard. Hence, we encourage submissions from a wide range of topics including but not limited to avalanche dynamics, snow stability, snow remote sensing, snow modelling, and snow instrumentation, as well as decision-making and the human aspects of avalanche risk management. We welcome theoretical contributions but encourage authors to highlight the practical relevance of their work.
To round out the special issue, we are approaching community leaders to write invited review papers that discuss the latest accomplishments and challenges in different core areas of snow science and avalanche risk management research. The intent of these articles is to provide accessible, up-to-date summaries of the current state of the research areas for both researchers and practitioners. If you are interested in writing one of these review papers, please contact one of the editors.
Review process: all papers of this special issue underwent the regular interactive peer-review process of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences handled by members of the editorial board as well as guest editors designated by the NHESS executive editors.
M
This special issue aims to (1) provide a high-quality collection of papers showcasing methodological advances in compound- and multi-risk analysis and management, (2) consolidate and foster learning across the compound-risk and (multi-hazard) multi-risk research fields, and (3) identify future research avenues.
Recent years have demonstrated the immense challenges faced by society as a result of the increasing complexity of disaster risk and due to climate change. Societies impacted by multiple natural hazards (either in sequence or at the same time) face different challenges than when impacted by a single hazard that occurs in isolation (AghaKouchak et al., 2020; Hillier and Dixon, 2020; Raymond et al., 2020a). The impacts of compound- and multi-hazard disasters are complex and may be driven by the consecutive nature of the (drivers of) hazards themselves (Hillier et al., 2020; Mora et al., 2018; Ridder et al., 2020; Zscheischler et al., 2018), the spatiotemporal dynamics in exposure and vulnerability caused by earlier events (de Ruiter et al., 2020; de Ruiter and Van Loon, 2022; Reichstein et al., 2021), or the influences of risk management on the dynamics of risk (Simpson et al., 2022). This makes managing compound- and multi-risk disasters especially complex, and several studies have noted that their management may require more comprehensive approaches than single-hazard disasters (Simpson et al., 2023; De Ruiter et al., 2021; Schippers, 2020).
In recent years, international agreements such as the Paris Agreement (2015) and the UN’s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) (UNDRR, 2015) have called upon the disaster risk science community to move away from siloed hazard thinking (i.e. assessing the risk from hazards one by one) and toward improving our understanding of these spatiotemporal complexities of disaster risk. Similarly, the latest series of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports recognizes the importance of accounting for multiple and complex risks. In a recent survey of members of the natural hazard research community, respondents noted that multi-hazards and resulting risks remain one of the core scientific challenges to be tackled (Sakic Trogrlic et al., 2022).
Subsequently, the past years have seen a rise in compound- and multi-risk (multi-hazard) studies that try to capture some of these complexities through advanced statistical methods (e.g. Zscheischler, 2017; Bevacqua et al., 2022; Couasnon et al., 2020), physically based models (Eilander et al., 2023; Couasnon et al., 2022), and multi-risk system analysis (e.g. Simpson et al., 2022; De Angeli et al., 2022; Van Westen and Greiving, 2017; Gill and Malamud, 2017; Ward et al., 2022). As a result, the compound- and multi-risk communities have developed largely in parallel with each other, and only in recent months have significant efforts been made to bring these two communities together, for example, as demonstrated by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2022 session focusing specifically on breaking silos between the two communities.
However, there is some interesting methodological and conceptual overlap between these communities and thus strong potential for catalyzing learning and innovation for (advancing) risk studies. The call from the international community has resulted in a proliferation of innovative methodological approaches across different disciplines, offering a vast array of possible options for multi- and systemic-risk reduction in practice. The importance of this topic is also apparent in recently funded research and networking projects including Damocles, The HuT, MIRACA, MYRIAD-EU, MEDiate, PARATUS, RECEIPT, CLIMAAX, Tomorrow’s Cities, Risk KAN, and NOAA’s Climate Adaptation Partnerships (formerly RISA), among others.
As early career researchers from both fields, we have contributed to shaping these two communities, and we perceive the need to bring them together to assess solutions for the future. However, despite these advances, there is still no single collection of high-quality scientific research papers focusing on methodological innovations for the analysis and management of both compound and multiple risks.
References: AghaKouchak, A., Chiang, F., Huning, L. S., Love, C. A., Mallakpour, I., Mazdiyasni, O., Moftakhari, H., Papalexiou, S. M., Ragno, E., and Sadegh, M.: Climate extremes and compound hazards in a warming world. Annu. Rev. Earth Pl. Sc, 48, 519-548, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-071719-055228, 2020.
Bevacqua, E., De Michele, C., Manning, C., Couasnon, A., Ribeiro, A. F., Ramos, A. M., Vignotto, E., Bastos, A., Blesić, S., Durante, F., Hillier, J., Oliveira, S. C., Pinto J. G., Ragno, E., Rivoire, P., Saunders, K., Van der Wiel, K., Wu, W., Zhang, T., and Zscheischler, J.: Guidelines for studying diverse types of compound weather and climate events, Earth's Future, 9, e2021EF002340,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002340, 2021.
Couasnon, A., Eilander, D., Muis, S., Veldkamp, T. I. E., Haigh, I. D., Wahl, T., Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: Measuring compound flood potential from river discharge and storm surge extremes at the global scale, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 489-504,
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-489-2020, 2020.
Couasnon, A., Scussolini, P., Tran, T. V. T., Eilander, D., Muis, S., Wang, H., Nguyen, H. Q. and Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: A flood risk framework capturing the seasonality of and dependence between rainfall and sea levels—An application to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Water Resour. Res., 58, e2021WR030002, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR030002, 2022.
De Angeli, S., Malamud, B. D., Rossi, L., Taylor, F. E., Trasforini, E., and Rudari, R.: A multi-hazard framework for spatial-temporal impact analysis,
Int. J. Disast. Risk Re., 73, 102829,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102829, 2022
de Ruiter, M. C. and Van Loon, A. F.: The challenges of dynamic vulnerability and how to assess it, IScience, 25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.104720, 2022.
de Ruiter, M. C., Couasnon, A., van den Homberg, M. J., Daniell, J. E., Gill, J. C., and Ward, P. J.: Why we can no longer ignore consecutive disasters, Earth's Future, 8, e2019EF001425, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001425, 2020.
de Ruiter, M. C., de Bruijn, J. A., Englhardt, J., Daniell, J. E., de Moel, H., and Ward, P. J.: The asynergies of structural disaster risk reduction measures: Comparing floods and earthquakes, Earth's Future, 9, e2020EF001531,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001531, 2021.
Eilander, D., Couasnon, A., Leijnse, T., Ikeuchi, H., Yamazaki, D., Muis, S., Dullaart, J., Haag, A., Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: A globally applicable framework for compound flood hazard modeling, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 823-846, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-823-2023, 2023.
Gill, J. C. and Malamud, B. D.: Hazard interactions and interaction networks (cascades) within multi-hazard methodologies, Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 659-679,
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-659-2016, 2016.
Hillier, J. K. and Dixon, R. S.: Seasonal impact-based mapping of compound hazards, Environ. Res. Lett., 15, 114013,
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abbc3d, 2020.
Mora, C., Spirandelli, D., Franklin, E. C., Lynham, J., Kantar, M. B., Miles, W., Smith, C. Z., Freel, K., Moy, J., Louis, L. V., Barba, E. W., Bettinger, K., Frazier, A. G., Colburn IX, J. F., Hanasaki, N., Hawkins, E., Hirabayashi, Y., Knorr, W., Little, C. M., Emanuel, K., Sheffield, J., Patz, J. A., and Hunter, C. L.: Broad threat to humanity from cumulative climate hazards intensified by greenhouse gas emissions, Nat. Clim. Change, 8, 1062-1071,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0315-6, 2018.
Raymond, C., Horton, R. M., Zscheischler, J., Martius, O., AghaKouchak, A., Balch, J., Bowen, S. G., Camargo, S. J., Hess, J., Kornhuber, K., Oppenheimer, M., Ruane, A. C., Wahl, T., and White, K.: Understanding and managing connected extreme events, Nat. Clim. Change, 10, 611-621,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0790-4, 2020.
Reichstein, M., Riede, F., and Frank, D.: More floods, fires and cyclones—plan for domino effects on sustainability goals, Nature, 592, 347-349, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00927-x, 2021.
Ridder, N. N., Pitman, A. J., Westra, S., Ukkola, A., Do, H. X., Bador, M., Hirsch, A. L., Evans, J. P., Di Luca, A., and Zscheischler, J.: Global hotspots for the occurrence of compound events, Nat. Commun., 11, 5956,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19639-3, 2020.
Šakić Trogrlić, R., Donovan, A., and Malamud, B. D.: Invited perspectives: Views of 350 natural hazard community members on key challenges in natural hazards research and the Sustainable Development Goals, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2771-2790, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2771-2022, 2022.
Schipper, E. L. F.: Maladaptation: when adaptation to climate change goes very wrong, One Earth, 3, 409-414, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.09.014, 2020.
Simpson, N. P., Mach, K. J., Constable, A., Hess, J., Hogarth, R., Howden, M., Lawrence, J., Lempert, R. J., Muccione, V., Mackey, B., New, M. G., O’Neill, B., Otoo, F., Pörtner, H.-O., Reisinger, A., Roberts, D., Schmidt, D. N., Seneviratne, S., Strongin, S., Van Aalst, M., Totin, E., and Trisos, C. H.: A framework for complex climate change risk assessment, One Earth, 4, 489-501,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.03.005, 2021.
Simpson, N. P., Williams, P. A., Mach, K. J., Berrang-Ford, L., Biesbroek, R., Haasnoot, M., Segnon, A. C., Campbell, D., Musah-Surugu, J. I., Joe, E. T., Nunbogu, A. M., Sabour, S., Meyer, A. L. S., Andrews, T. M., Singh, C., Siders, A. R., Lawrence, J., Van Aalst, M., and Trisos, C. H.: Adaptation to compound climate risks: A systematic global stocktake, IScience, 26, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4205750, 2023.
UNDRR: Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015–2030, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Geneva, Switzerland,
https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-9813-2015016, 2015.
van Westen, C. J. and Greiving, S.: Multi-hazard risk assessment and decision making, Environmental Hazards Methodologies for Risk Assessment and Management, 31,
https://doi.org/10.2166/9781780407135_0031, 2017.
Ward, P. J., Daniell, J., Duncan, M., Dunne, A., Hananel, C., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Tijssen, A., Torresan, S., Ciurean, R., Gill, J. C., Sillmann, J., Couasnon, A., Koks, E., Padrón-Fumero, N., Tatman, S., Tronstad Lund, M., Adesiyun, A., Aerts, J. C. J. H., Alabaster, A., Bulder, B., Campillo Torres, C., Critto, A., Hernández-Martín, R., Machado, M., Mysiak, J., Orth, R., Palomino Antolín, I., Petrescu, E.-C., Reichstein, M., Tiggeloven, T., Van Loon, A. F., Vuong Pham, H., and de Ruiter, M. C.: Invited perspectives: A research agenda towards disaster risk management pathways in multi-(hazard-)risk assessment, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1487-1497, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1487-2022, 2022.
Zscheischler, J., Westra, S., van den Hurk, B. J. J. M., Seneviratne, S. I., Ward, P. J., Pitman, A., AghaKouchak, A., Bresch, D. N., Leonard, M., Wahl, T., and Zhang, X.: Future climate risk from compound events, Nat. Clim. Change, 8, 469477,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0156-3, 2018.
N
- digital photographic or 3D models reflecting the pre-disaster state of affected areas, for example before and after disaster or before and after reconstruction surveys;
- decision methods to balance between the (landscape) architecture–artistic–historic value and vulnerability in order to select appropriate preventive retrofit or post-disaster repair methods;
- ways to consider regional characteristics when selecting prevention measures or when rebuilding after disaster;
- local culture in vernacular architecture based on historic disaster experience;
- illustration of historic disasters in image and photography;
- post-disaster planning interventions (restructuring, reconstruction, reconfiguration, revitalization, renaturation, restoration, etc.), which lead to the positive/negative transformation of a landscape, an urban area, or an architectural (heritage) construction;
- mapping techniques of landmark perception for consideration in reconstruction after disaster;
- cultural landscape elements and associated genius loci – the memory of a place, architectural construction, urban area, landscape, or territory that went through a disaster or that developed as a result of post-disaster planning operations;
- nature-based solutions for disaster resilience, including climate change effects;
- urban wildland interfaces for the forest and natural protected areas in the city and urban water interfaces, adapting in practice solutions based on resilient planning in relevant cases;
- ecosystem-based fire risk reduction and adaptation in practice;
- solutions to minimize risk in areas with major infrastructure and utility networks, through design and urban planning;
- impact assessment on infrastructure systems with a particular interest in flooding on transportation networks;
- any other related topics.
R
Building on growing evidence that acting before the onset of a disaster is significantly faster, more dignified, and more (cost-)effective than response afterwards, humanitarian and governmental actors develop and implement anticipatory action frameworks. Anticipatory action requires impact-based forecasting models with appropriate thresholds to trigger pre-defined early actions that mitigate the predicted impact. Despite significant advances in hazard forecasting and the data revolution leading to more data on risk and impact as well as artificial intelligence solutions becoming available, it remains challenging to produce impact-based forecasts. This special issue aims to showcase lessons learned and best practices on impact-based multi-hazard early-warning early-action systems from the perspective of the multiple actors involved in the anticipatory action value chain. It presents novel methods to translate climate-related and geohazard forecasts into impact-based forecasts. We solicit contributions (commentaries, review articles, original research articles) from different perspectives on this interdisciplinary topic from research scientists, students, practitioners, and stakeholders. It will be a unique opportunity to further our understanding of impact-based forecasting.
Abstracts that fall under one of the following themes will be considered:
- risk or impact assessments that are undertaken to inform the co-production of impact-based forecasting models and early-action protocols and to set corresponding trigger levels, whichcan include research into how risk and impact data can be governed, ensuring, for example, the sharing of data between the multitude of data providers and data users, or how historical hazard-impact catalogues can be created;
- forecast skill analyses of the hazard forecasts from national, regional, or global forecasting sources so that there is a clear understanding of the reliability of hazard forecasts that are used in the impact-based forecasts;
- reflections on the influence of forecast uncertainty across different timescales in decision-making and on how uncertainties can best be communicated and visualized;
- impact-based forecasting modelling, ranging from composite risk index types of approaches to elementary or statistical modelling, andbenchmarking of different approaches;
- the use of state-of-the-art methods, such as using artificial intelligence, big data, and earth observation applications, to address the difficulties in the creation of hazard-impact catalogues, impact-based forecasting models, and/or beneficiary targeting;
- research work linked to people-centred early-warning systems and anticipatory action including the role of indigenous/traditional knowledge in the development and strengthening of people-centred early-warning systems, last-mile early-warning delivery, and the co-design of gender- and disability-sensitive climate services for a gender-transformative early warning;
- barriers and opportunities in the development and use of impact-based forecasting in anticipatory action systems; explanations of the role of humanitarian agencies, scientists, and communities at risk in creating standard operating procedures for economically feasible actions; examples of cost-efficient portfolios of early actions for climate-/geo-related impact preparedness such as cash transfer for droughts or weather-based insurance for floods; assessments on the types and costs of possible forecast-based disaster risk management actions; practical applications of impact forecasts.
Manuscripts with case studies in different geographic regions will be welcome.
Papers that do not address these topics, if appropriate, will be proposed to the general submissions for NHESS. A series of contributions will be drawn from EGU 2023 Session HS4.5 Reducing the impacts of natural hazards through forecast-based action: from early warning to early action
and Session HS4.4 Operational forecasting and warning systems for natural hazards and climate emergency: challenges and innovations
. However, unsolicited contributions are also highly encouraged. The guest editors aim for diversity and balance in contributions and authors, encouraging researchers from developing countries, women, and underrepresented minorities to contribute to this special issue.
S
The effects of extreme weather events are linked to the complex interactions between natural forces, physical drivers, and societal factors. Accordingly, inclusive and effective mitigation and adaptation strategies to enhance climate resilience need to be based on a sound understanding and quantification of the drivers of climate change as well as changes in socio-economic characteristics. While acknowledging different roots of disciplinary paradigms, advanced methods and approaches are needed to capture multiple dimensions of vulnerability and resilience, including structural, ecological, socio-demographic, and institutional drivers.
This special issue aims to bring together interdisciplinary approaches in climate vulnerability, adaptation, and disaster resilience to inform planning and policy in a rapidly changing world. In particular, the volume will highlight the role of different assessment methods, tools, and frameworks to improve the understanding of social, economic, physical, and ecological resilience to the hazards of flooding and heat waves including compound events.
The special issue seeks contributions of original research and perspectives on the following topic areas:
- operationalized and applied resilience assessment frameworks, e.g. by using remote sensing, statistical data, climate information, and predictive models aiming to quantify disaster resilience;
- lessons learned from previous disaster events as well as new methods and tools to strengthen climate-resilient development in reconstruction after extreme events (such as within the reconstruction of the Ahr Valley in Germany, which was hit by a major flood);
- the role of socio-economic forces in capturing social vulnerability and determining adaptation options in spatial planning and urban development;
- linkages between climate change projections and socio-demographic development to inform urban climate policies; and
- tools and approaches for enhancing multi-sectoral cooperation, including decision-makers, practitioners, and the public in disaster recovery and resilience.
2023
Fresh water is a key resource for human life, natural and agricultural ecosystems, and many aspects of societal and economic systems. Climate change will affect the availability and the quality of fresh water particularly, through altering the characteristics and frequency of extremes such as droughts and flooding. This in turn puts the functioning of water-related sectors and ecosystem services at risk. This special issue focuses on water-related risks in the Berlin–Brandenburg region. Submissions related to new natural hazard detection, monitoring and modelling, vulnerability and risk assessment, and the development and implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies, as well as economic, societal, and educational aspects, are welcome. All contributions should have a focus on the specific regional setting of the Berlin–Brandenburg region, but authors are encouraged to draw connections and extrapolate findings that may have wider relevance outside the specific area.
Potential topics will include, but not be limited to:- Vulnerability of human-environment systems to water-related hazards and availability of good quality water.
- Sustainable water resource management and solution for making human-environment systems more resilient to water-related hazards.
- Forms of governance to cope with emerging challenges and how solutions can be implemented.
- Public awareness, legal issues, administrative constraints and appropriate adaptation practices.
Review process: all papers of this special issue underwent the regular interactive peer-review process of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences handled by guest editors designated by the NHESS executive editors.
After a 5-year hiatus, the International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW), the largest snow-avalanche-focused science meeting in the world, is taking place again this autumn. This year’s conference is taking place in Bend, Oregon, from 5–13 October 2023. Building on the tradition of previous ISSWs, we take this opportunity to compile a special issue that summarizes the latest developments in snow science and avalanche risk management research.
We invite all ISSW presenters interested in a peer-reviewed scientific publication to submit manuscripts that explain their research in more detail than in the conference proceedings. To be considered, these papers need to be scientifically more rigorous, which means that they contain expanded technical information, additional details on methods, and a more complete description of results and conclusions.
Avalanche risk management is an inherently interdisciplinary challenge that requires an in-depth understanding of both the natural phenomenon and the people interacting with that hazard. Hence, we encourage submissions from a wide range of topics including but not limited to avalanche dynamics, snow stability, snow remote sensing, snow modelling, and snow instrumentation, as well as decision-making and the human aspects of avalanche risk management. We welcome theoretical contributions but encourage authors to highlight the practical relevance of their work.
To round out the special issue, we are approaching community leaders to write invited review papers that discuss the latest accomplishments and challenges in different core areas of snow science and avalanche risk management research. The intent of these articles is to provide accessible, up-to-date summaries of the current state of the research areas for both researchers and practitioners. If you are interested in writing one of these review papers, please contact one of the editors.
Review process: all papers of this special issue underwent the regular interactive peer-review process of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences handled by members of the editorial board as well as guest editors designated by the NHESS executive editors.
The effects of extreme weather events are linked to the complex interactions between natural forces, physical drivers, and societal factors. Accordingly, inclusive and effective mitigation and adaptation strategies to enhance climate resilience need to be based on a sound understanding and quantification of the drivers of climate change as well as changes in socio-economic characteristics. While acknowledging different roots of disciplinary paradigms, advanced methods and approaches are needed to capture multiple dimensions of vulnerability and resilience, including structural, ecological, socio-demographic, and institutional drivers.
This special issue aims to bring together interdisciplinary approaches in climate vulnerability, adaptation, and disaster resilience to inform planning and policy in a rapidly changing world. In particular, the volume will highlight the role of different assessment methods, tools, and frameworks to improve the understanding of social, economic, physical, and ecological resilience to the hazards of flooding and heat waves including compound events.
The special issue seeks contributions of original research and perspectives on the following topic areas:
- operationalized and applied resilience assessment frameworks, e.g. by using remote sensing, statistical data, climate information, and predictive models aiming to quantify disaster resilience;
- lessons learned from previous disaster events as well as new methods and tools to strengthen climate-resilient development in reconstruction after extreme events (such as within the reconstruction of the Ahr Valley in Germany, which was hit by a major flood);
- the role of socio-economic forces in capturing social vulnerability and determining adaptation options in spatial planning and urban development;
- linkages between climate change projections and socio-demographic development to inform urban climate policies; and
- tools and approaches for enhancing multi-sectoral cooperation, including decision-makers, practitioners, and the public in disaster recovery and resilience.
Global as well as local processes (including feedback loops across scales) may enhance or suppress hazard intensities and impacts. Additionally, differential rates of climate change and varying levels of societal preparedness also drive the varying distributional impacts of such events. This calls for novel systemic approaches to assess the indirect and intangible impacts – especially the interplay of hazards and their impacts on health and society after events. This trans-disciplinary topic requires insights into spatial and temporal changes in the dynamics of vulnerability (e.g. socioeconomic and demographic characteristics) in the context of cascading or compound impacts, which is often lacking in conventional risk assessments.
This special issue (SI) welcomes papers dealing with this complex context with a special focus on (but not limited to) the following:
- assessing indirect impacts of natural hazards, including acute, slow-onset, or a combination of concurrent and cascading hazards;
- intangible impacts beyond the
standard
direct monetizable losses (e.g. disruption of critical services and supply, business interruption, loss of irreplaceable items or ecosystem services); - impacts on physical and mental health and (future) health impacts of long-term exposure to climatic stressors and adaptation to prevent adverse health outcomes;
- impacts on specific population groups (e.g. socially vulnerable groups), differential vulnerability, and impacts on healthcare systems;
- exploring novel data and methods for mapping temporal and spatial social vulnerability (e.g. machine learning, spatial disaggregation techniques) and analysing temporal and spatial dynamics in social vulnerability (both observed changes and future changes).
This special issue aims to (1) provide a high-quality collection of papers showcasing methodological advances in compound- and multi-risk analysis and management, (2) consolidate and foster learning across the compound-risk and (multi-hazard) multi-risk research fields, and (3) identify future research avenues.
Recent years have demonstrated the immense challenges faced by society as a result of the increasing complexity of disaster risk and due to climate change. Societies impacted by multiple natural hazards (either in sequence or at the same time) face different challenges than when impacted by a single hazard that occurs in isolation (AghaKouchak et al., 2020; Hillier and Dixon, 2020; Raymond et al., 2020a). The impacts of compound- and multi-hazard disasters are complex and may be driven by the consecutive nature of the (drivers of) hazards themselves (Hillier et al., 2020; Mora et al., 2018; Ridder et al., 2020; Zscheischler et al., 2018), the spatiotemporal dynamics in exposure and vulnerability caused by earlier events (de Ruiter et al., 2020; de Ruiter and Van Loon, 2022; Reichstein et al., 2021), or the influences of risk management on the dynamics of risk (Simpson et al., 2022). This makes managing compound- and multi-risk disasters especially complex, and several studies have noted that their management may require more comprehensive approaches than single-hazard disasters (Simpson et al., 2023; De Ruiter et al., 2021; Schippers, 2020).
In recent years, international agreements such as the Paris Agreement (2015) and the UN’s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) (UNDRR, 2015) have called upon the disaster risk science community to move away from siloed hazard thinking (i.e. assessing the risk from hazards one by one) and toward improving our understanding of these spatiotemporal complexities of disaster risk. Similarly, the latest series of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports recognizes the importance of accounting for multiple and complex risks. In a recent survey of members of the natural hazard research community, respondents noted that multi-hazards and resulting risks remain one of the core scientific challenges to be tackled (Sakic Trogrlic et al., 2022).
Subsequently, the past years have seen a rise in compound- and multi-risk (multi-hazard) studies that try to capture some of these complexities through advanced statistical methods (e.g. Zscheischler, 2017; Bevacqua et al., 2022; Couasnon et al., 2020), physically based models (Eilander et al., 2023; Couasnon et al., 2022), and multi-risk system analysis (e.g. Simpson et al., 2022; De Angeli et al., 2022; Van Westen and Greiving, 2017; Gill and Malamud, 2017; Ward et al., 2022). As a result, the compound- and multi-risk communities have developed largely in parallel with each other, and only in recent months have significant efforts been made to bring these two communities together, for example, as demonstrated by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2022 session focusing specifically on breaking silos between the two communities.
However, there is some interesting methodological and conceptual overlap between these communities and thus strong potential for catalyzing learning and innovation for (advancing) risk studies. The call from the international community has resulted in a proliferation of innovative methodological approaches across different disciplines, offering a vast array of possible options for multi- and systemic-risk reduction in practice. The importance of this topic is also apparent in recently funded research and networking projects including Damocles, The HuT, MIRACA, MYRIAD-EU, MEDiate, PARATUS, RECEIPT, CLIMAAX, Tomorrow’s Cities, Risk KAN, and NOAA’s Climate Adaptation Partnerships (formerly RISA), among others.
As early career researchers from both fields, we have contributed to shaping these two communities, and we perceive the need to bring them together to assess solutions for the future. However, despite these advances, there is still no single collection of high-quality scientific research papers focusing on methodological innovations for the analysis and management of both compound and multiple risks.
References: AghaKouchak, A., Chiang, F., Huning, L. S., Love, C. A., Mallakpour, I., Mazdiyasni, O., Moftakhari, H., Papalexiou, S. M., Ragno, E., and Sadegh, M.: Climate extremes and compound hazards in a warming world. Annu. Rev. Earth Pl. Sc, 48, 519-548, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-071719-055228, 2020.
Bevacqua, E., De Michele, C., Manning, C., Couasnon, A., Ribeiro, A. F., Ramos, A. M., Vignotto, E., Bastos, A., Blesić, S., Durante, F., Hillier, J., Oliveira, S. C., Pinto J. G., Ragno, E., Rivoire, P., Saunders, K., Van der Wiel, K., Wu, W., Zhang, T., and Zscheischler, J.: Guidelines for studying diverse types of compound weather and climate events, Earth's Future, 9, e2021EF002340,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002340, 2021.
Couasnon, A., Eilander, D., Muis, S., Veldkamp, T. I. E., Haigh, I. D., Wahl, T., Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: Measuring compound flood potential from river discharge and storm surge extremes at the global scale, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 489-504,
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-489-2020, 2020.
Couasnon, A., Scussolini, P., Tran, T. V. T., Eilander, D., Muis, S., Wang, H., Nguyen, H. Q. and Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: A flood risk framework capturing the seasonality of and dependence between rainfall and sea levels—An application to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Water Resour. Res., 58, e2021WR030002, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR030002, 2022.
De Angeli, S., Malamud, B. D., Rossi, L., Taylor, F. E., Trasforini, E., and Rudari, R.: A multi-hazard framework for spatial-temporal impact analysis,
Int. J. Disast. Risk Re., 73, 102829,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102829, 2022
de Ruiter, M. C. and Van Loon, A. F.: The challenges of dynamic vulnerability and how to assess it, IScience, 25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.104720, 2022.
de Ruiter, M. C., Couasnon, A., van den Homberg, M. J., Daniell, J. E., Gill, J. C., and Ward, P. J.: Why we can no longer ignore consecutive disasters, Earth's Future, 8, e2019EF001425, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001425, 2020.
de Ruiter, M. C., de Bruijn, J. A., Englhardt, J., Daniell, J. E., de Moel, H., and Ward, P. J.: The asynergies of structural disaster risk reduction measures: Comparing floods and earthquakes, Earth's Future, 9, e2020EF001531,
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001531, 2021.
Eilander, D., Couasnon, A., Leijnse, T., Ikeuchi, H., Yamazaki, D., Muis, S., Dullaart, J., Haag, A., Winsemius, H. C., and Ward, P. J.: A globally applicable framework for compound flood hazard modeling, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 823-846, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-823-2023, 2023.
Gill, J. C. and Malamud, B. D.: Hazard interactions and interaction networks (cascades) within multi-hazard methodologies, Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 659-679,
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-659-2016, 2016.
Hillier, J. K. and Dixon, R. S.: Seasonal impact-based mapping of compound hazards, Environ. Res. Lett., 15, 114013,
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abbc3d, 2020.
Mora, C., Spirandelli, D., Franklin, E. C., Lynham, J., Kantar, M. B., Miles, W., Smith, C. Z., Freel, K., Moy, J., Louis, L. V., Barba, E. W., Bettinger, K., Frazier, A. G., Colburn IX, J. F., Hanasaki, N., Hawkins, E., Hirabayashi, Y., Knorr, W., Little, C. M., Emanuel, K., Sheffield, J., Patz, J. A., and Hunter, C. L.: Broad threat to humanity from cumulative climate hazards intensified by greenhouse gas emissions, Nat. Clim. Change, 8, 1062-1071,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0315-6, 2018.
Raymond, C., Horton, R. M., Zscheischler, J., Martius, O., AghaKouchak, A., Balch, J., Bowen, S. G., Camargo, S. J., Hess, J., Kornhuber, K., Oppenheimer, M., Ruane, A. C., Wahl, T., and White, K.: Understanding and managing connected extreme events, Nat. Clim. Change, 10, 611-621,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0790-4, 2020.
Reichstein, M., Riede, F., and Frank, D.: More floods, fires and cyclones—plan for domino effects on sustainability goals, Nature, 592, 347-349, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00927-x, 2021.
Ridder, N. N., Pitman, A. J., Westra, S., Ukkola, A., Do, H. X., Bador, M., Hirsch, A. L., Evans, J. P., Di Luca, A., and Zscheischler, J.: Global hotspots for the occurrence of compound events, Nat. Commun., 11, 5956,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19639-3, 2020.
Šakić Trogrlić, R., Donovan, A., and Malamud, B. D.: Invited perspectives: Views of 350 natural hazard community members on key challenges in natural hazards research and the Sustainable Development Goals, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2771-2790, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2771-2022, 2022.
Schipper, E. L. F.: Maladaptation: when adaptation to climate change goes very wrong, One Earth, 3, 409-414, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.09.014, 2020.
Simpson, N. P., Mach, K. J., Constable, A., Hess, J., Hogarth, R., Howden, M., Lawrence, J., Lempert, R. J., Muccione, V., Mackey, B., New, M. G., O’Neill, B., Otoo, F., Pörtner, H.-O., Reisinger, A., Roberts, D., Schmidt, D. N., Seneviratne, S., Strongin, S., Van Aalst, M., Totin, E., and Trisos, C. H.: A framework for complex climate change risk assessment, One Earth, 4, 489-501,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.03.005, 2021.
Simpson, N. P., Williams, P. A., Mach, K. J., Berrang-Ford, L., Biesbroek, R., Haasnoot, M., Segnon, A. C., Campbell, D., Musah-Surugu, J. I., Joe, E. T., Nunbogu, A. M., Sabour, S., Meyer, A. L. S., Andrews, T. M., Singh, C., Siders, A. R., Lawrence, J., Van Aalst, M., and Trisos, C. H.: Adaptation to compound climate risks: A systematic global stocktake, IScience, 26, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4205750, 2023.
UNDRR: Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015–2030, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Geneva, Switzerland,
https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-9813-2015016, 2015.
van Westen, C. J. and Greiving, S.: Multi-hazard risk assessment and decision making, Environmental Hazards Methodologies for Risk Assessment and Management, 31,
https://doi.org/10.2166/9781780407135_0031, 2017.
Ward, P. J., Daniell, J., Duncan, M., Dunne, A., Hananel, C., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Tijssen, A., Torresan, S., Ciurean, R., Gill, J. C., Sillmann, J., Couasnon, A., Koks, E., Padrón-Fumero, N., Tatman, S., Tronstad Lund, M., Adesiyun, A., Aerts, J. C. J. H., Alabaster, A., Bulder, B., Campillo Torres, C., Critto, A., Hernández-Martín, R., Machado, M., Mysiak, J., Orth, R., Palomino Antolín, I., Petrescu, E.-C., Reichstein, M., Tiggeloven, T., Van Loon, A. F., Vuong Pham, H., and de Ruiter, M. C.: Invited perspectives: A research agenda towards disaster risk management pathways in multi-(hazard-)risk assessment, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1487-1497, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1487-2022, 2022.
Zscheischler, J., Westra, S., van den Hurk, B. J. J. M., Seneviratne, S. I., Ward, P. J., Pitman, A., AghaKouchak, A., Bresch, D. N., Leonard, M., Wahl, T., and Zhang, X.: Future climate risk from compound events, Nat. Clim. Change, 8, 469477,
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end the drought in drought researchand asked for more support to better identify and prepare for drought disasters (Padma, 2019). Preparing for future drought requires a thorough understanding of the complexities of systemic drought risk and adaptation feedbacks, effective drought risk management, and good communication of the risk and potential adaptation options. In the special issue on
Drought, society, and ecosystems, we aim to showcase the diverse interdisciplinary research being done on the interactions between drought, ecosystems, and people (including human-induced climate change and management).
We solicit contributions (commentaries, review articles, original research articles) from different perspectives on this interdisciplinary topic from research scientists of different fields, students, practitioners, and stakeholders. It will be a unique opportunity to further our understanding of drought risk, adaptation, and feedbacks. The co-listing of this special issue under the Copernicus journals Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS), Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS), Geoscience Communication (GC), and Biogeosciences (BG) allows for more diversity in perspectives.
Abstracts that fall under one of the following (or related) themes will be considered:
- drought risk analysis
- drought impact attribution
- water security in diverse contexts
- drought risk management and communication
- co-creation of drought information services
- drought in (socio-)ecological systems
- drought and the food–water–energy–environment nexus
- influence of human activities on drought hazard
- socio-hydrology of human–drought interactions
- drought and vulnerability (in ecological and/or social systems)
- drought adaptation (in ecological and/or social systems)
- climate change impacts on drought/water security.
Manuscripts with diverse authorships and with case studies in different geographic regions are especially welcomed. The special issue arises from the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) Panta Rhei working group Drought in the Anthropocene
and aims to showcase the research done on drought–society–ecosystem interactions during the IAHS Panta Rhei decade (2013–2023). However, unsolicited contributions are also highly encouraged. The guest editors aim for diversity and balance in contributions and authors, encouraging researchers from countries underrepresented in science, women, and minorities to contribute to this special issue.
References:
UNDRR: GAR Special Report on Drought 2021, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, ISBN 9789212320274, 2021.
Padma, T.V.: African nations push UN to improve drought research, Nature, 573, 319-320, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02760-9, 2019.
- digital photographic or 3D models reflecting the pre-disaster state of affected areas, for example before and after disaster or before and after reconstruction surveys;
- decision methods to balance between the (landscape) architecture–artistic–historic value and vulnerability in order to select appropriate preventive retrofit or post-disaster repair methods;
- ways to consider regional characteristics when selecting prevention measures or when rebuilding after disaster;
- local culture in vernacular architecture based on historic disaster experience;
- illustration of historic disasters in image and photography;
- post-disaster planning interventions (restructuring, reconstruction, reconfiguration, revitalization, renaturation, restoration, etc.), which lead to the positive/negative transformation of a landscape, an urban area, or an architectural (heritage) construction;
- mapping techniques of landmark perception for consideration in reconstruction after disaster;
- cultural landscape elements and associated genius loci – the memory of a place, architectural construction, urban area, landscape, or territory that went through a disaster or that developed as a result of post-disaster planning operations;
- nature-based solutions for disaster resilience, including climate change effects;
- urban wildland interfaces for the forest and natural protected areas in the city and urban water interfaces, adapting in practice solutions based on resilient planning in relevant cases;
- ecosystem-based fire risk reduction and adaptation in practice;
- solutions to minimize risk in areas with major infrastructure and utility networks, through design and urban planning;
- impact assessment on infrastructure systems with a particular interest in flooding on transportation networks;
- any other related topics.
Building on growing evidence that acting before the onset of a disaster is significantly faster, more dignified, and more (cost-)effective than response afterwards, humanitarian and governmental actors develop and implement anticipatory action frameworks. Anticipatory action requires impact-based forecasting models with appropriate thresholds to trigger pre-defined early actions that mitigate the predicted impact. Despite significant advances in hazard forecasting and the data revolution leading to more data on risk and impact as well as artificial intelligence solutions becoming available, it remains challenging to produce impact-based forecasts. This special issue aims to showcase lessons learned and best practices on impact-based multi-hazard early-warning early-action systems from the perspective of the multiple actors involved in the anticipatory action value chain. It presents novel methods to translate climate-related and geohazard forecasts into impact-based forecasts. We solicit contributions (commentaries, review articles, original research articles) from different perspectives on this interdisciplinary topic from research scientists, students, practitioners, and stakeholders. It will be a unique opportunity to further our understanding of impact-based forecasting.
Abstracts that fall under one of the following themes will be considered:
- risk or impact assessments that are undertaken to inform the co-production of impact-based forecasting models and early-action protocols and to set corresponding trigger levels, whichcan include research into how risk and impact data can be governed, ensuring, for example, the sharing of data between the multitude of data providers and data users, or how historical hazard-impact catalogues can be created;
- forecast skill analyses of the hazard forecasts from national, regional, or global forecasting sources so that there is a clear understanding of the reliability of hazard forecasts that are used in the impact-based forecasts;
- reflections on the influence of forecast uncertainty across different timescales in decision-making and on how uncertainties can best be communicated and visualized;
- impact-based forecasting modelling, ranging from composite risk index types of approaches to elementary or statistical modelling, andbenchmarking of different approaches;
- the use of state-of-the-art methods, such as using artificial intelligence, big data, and earth observation applications, to address the difficulties in the creation of hazard-impact catalogues, impact-based forecasting models, and/or beneficiary targeting;
- research work linked to people-centred early-warning systems and anticipatory action including the role of indigenous/traditional knowledge in the development and strengthening of people-centred early-warning systems, last-mile early-warning delivery, and the co-design of gender- and disability-sensitive climate services for a gender-transformative early warning;
- barriers and opportunities in the development and use of impact-based forecasting in anticipatory action systems; explanations of the role of humanitarian agencies, scientists, and communities at risk in creating standard operating procedures for economically feasible actions; examples of cost-efficient portfolios of early actions for climate-/geo-related impact preparedness such as cash transfer for droughts or weather-based insurance for floods; assessments on the types and costs of possible forecast-based disaster risk management actions; practical applications of impact forecasts.
Manuscripts with case studies in different geographic regions will be welcome.
Papers that do not address these topics, if appropriate, will be proposed to the general submissions for NHESS. A series of contributions will be drawn from EGU 2023 Session HS4.5 Reducing the impacts of natural hazards through forecast-based action: from early warning to early action
and Session HS4.4 Operational forecasting and warning systems for natural hazards and climate emergency: challenges and innovations
. However, unsolicited contributions are also highly encouraged. The guest editors aim for diversity and balance in contributions and authors, encouraging researchers from developing countries, women, and underrepresented minorities to contribute to this special issue.