Global multi-hazard risk assessment in a changing climate

Abstract

Natural hazards pose significant risks to people and assets in many regions of the world. Quantifying associated risks is crucial for many applications such as adaptation option appraisal and insurance pricing. However, traditional risk assessment approaches have focused on the impacts of single hazards, ignoring the effects of multi-hazard risks and potentially leading to underestimations or overestimations of risks. In this work, we present a framework for modelling multi-hazard risks globally in a consistent way, considering hazards, exposures, vulnerabilities, and assumptions on recovery. We illustrate the approach using river floods and tropical cyclones impacting people and physical assets on a global scale in a changing climate. To ensure physical consistency, we combine single hazard models that were driven by the same climate model realizations. Our results show that incorporating common physical drivers and recovery considerably alters the multi-hazard risk. This framework is implemented in the open-source climate risk assessment platform CLIMADA and can be applied to various hazards and exposures, providing a more comprehensive approach to risk management than conventional methods.

A generalized framework for designing open-source natural hazard parametric insurance

“…The second case study on winter storms illustrates the flexibility of our approach, which can be tailored to suit different hazards and exposures/maximum payouts. In the future, this methodology could be further developed to provide for multi-hazard risks (Stalhandske et al, 2023).…”