Risk identification and assessment

Peat fires are a recurring challenge in Indonesia. Drought caused the archipelago's peat landscapes to become unrelenting infernos on several occasions in the past, with fires producing blankets of smoke for weeks and upending daily life for millions.

While an imminent catastrophe is not predicted in Jammu and Kashmir’s Chenab Valley, recent studies and government assessments suggest that Kishtwar district possesses many of the characteristics that make Himalayan regions vulnerable to such disasters.

Study finds that rapid root-zone soil moisture depletion during flash droughts is more strongly linked to accelerated wildfire spread than conventional drought conditions across the United States.

A survey of 1,207 households across three severely affected districts (Buner, Shangla, and Swat) revealed that 85 percent of families received no warning before the flood waters arrived. For those that did, half had less than thirty minutes to act.

This study uses Earth Observation data and Google Earth Engine to assess agricultural drought risk across Odisha, India. Results identify western districts as highest risk and support targeted drought mitigation, planning and climate resilience actions.

This paper identifies transboundary GLODF threats across the Himalayas and projects their future evolution under climate change, highlighting growing risks, hotspots along the China–Nepal border, and the need for stronger monitoring and early warning.

A globally scalable framework combines dense-array seismic observations, rupture imaging and shaking models to estimate earthquake impacts within minutes of origin time.

UC Riverside scientists have developed a way to identify where Earth’s biggest earthquakes are most likely to occur, offering a powerful new tool for improving disaster preparations in some of the most dangerous seismic regions.

Over the past half-century, annual hot-season temperatures in parts of the United States have warmed by as much as 4 or 5 degrees Fahrenheit, driving heat waves, droughts, and downpours.

By analyzing the way that vibrations scatter light through the wires, scientists can detect volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and even footsteps above. Last year, researchers laid a cable on the seafloor near a Greenland glacier.

Research shows that the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average. The sea ice is melting, exposing more open ocean and throwing the ecosystem out of balance.

A national Coastal Exposure Index maps relative climate hazard exposure around Ireland, highlighting exposure hotspots, coastal habitats’ protective role and populations and cultural heritage sites near highly exposed coastlines.

A new study suggests that El Ninos—the natural climatic chaos agent that pops up periodically and spikes global temperatures—are getting stronger because of human-caused climate change.

This paper analyses 150 years of census and hazard data to assess how extreme weather affected population trends in Northern Australia. It finds floods and cyclones can disrupt population growth highlighting need for resilience and adaptation planning.

The report assesses current context of sea level rise, key challenges and ongoing efforts by Member States and the UN system to address such challenges. The report builds on the Sep 2024 high-level plenary meeting to address sea level rise threats

Study uses the 2020 Gjerdrum landslide as a natural experiment to examine how climate risk salience affects housing markets. Exposed properties experienced temporary price declines of 1–1.5 per cent, while new residential development in risk zones fell.

A study finds that weak sea-surface temperature gradients reduce ocean cooling beneath tropical cyclones, allowing storms to intensify. Researchers say incorporating these small-scale ocean features into forecasting models could improve cyclone warnings.

More and larger fires, including in areas of historically low fire activity, are likely but not a given.

A new, international scientific review warns that major gaps in knowledge along Antarctica’s coasts – where the ice sheet and the Southern Ocean interact – are now one of the biggest obstacles to reliably projecting future global sea level rise

WMO update on the strengthening El Niño event and its implications for global temperature and rainfall patterns through early 2027.

The latest seasonal forecasts from WMO Global Producing Centres indicate an exceptionally high likelihood (nearly 100% probability) that El Niño will persist through September–November 2026 and December 2026–February 2027.

Erosion rates on parts of the Kaikōura Peninsula more than doubled after the 2016 earthquake, showing major quakes can “rapidly alter” the way coastlines evolve, an Otago researcher says.

In computer simulations of The Big One—a large magnitude earthquake that may occur along the San Andreas Fault in California.

Virtual simulations spotlight the role human behavior plays in earthquake safety. UC Berkeley researchers are studying what happens in those critical moments and how fear and risk perception influence people’s actions.

The new results suggest that, particularly for the UK and Ireland, storms with unusual origins may deserve a place in assessments of future wind and rainfall risk—even if they remain far less common than the storms Europe experiences every winter.

This case study examines the current state of the Philippines’ heat early warning system, including how heat risk is understood and monitored, and how warnings are issued, communicated and acted upon across institutions.

This case study examines the current state of Jordan’s heat early warning system, including how heat risk is understood and monitored, and how warnings are issued, communicated and acted upon across institutions.

This case study examines the current state of Mexico’s heat early warning system, including how heat risk is understood and monitored, and how warnings are issued, communicated and acted upon across institutions.

This isn’t the first rock-ice avalanche in the Himalayas, but it is by far the most devastating. And, it is unlikely to be the last. Rising temperatures mean the permanently frozen slopes of mountains in the region may begin to melt and destabilise.

A team found that for every standard deviation increase marine heat wave occurrences in a 24-month period child mortality increases by 5.4 percent. Malnutrition related child wasting and child stunting also increased by 6.5 and 8.8 percent respectively.

This study quantifies flood-related financial risk across Nikkei 225 companies and 18,000+ facilities. Using climate, hydrological and corporate data, it estimates annual losses exceeding US$8.2 billion by 2030 and identifies sectors with exposure.

The new mayor wants to invest in coastal resilience, but he will have to decide which areas of the city to protect. New York City has more than 500 miles of coastline, no two miles of the waterfront are quite the same and are vulnerable in different ways.

New research is dismantling the long-standing myth of the "pristine" Amazon. A reconstruction of 10,000 years of Amazonian pyrogeography shows that fire in the rainforest is almost exclusively a human-driven phenomenon, not a natural one.

This study uses UNSEEN simulations to assess the risk of tropical-origin cyclones affecting Europe. Results show the UK and Ireland face the greatest risk, and events similar to Hurricane Lili (1996) may occur every few decades.

A glacier collapse near the China-Nepal border triggered a catastrophic mudslide in just seven minutes, exposing gaps in monitoring and early warning as climate change raises the risk of extreme Himalayan disasters.

This study assesses debris-flow hazards and risks along the China-Nepal transportation corridor. It identifies high-risk road sections and hazard hotspots, providing evidence to support recovery, early warning systems and transboundary DRR.

Climate change is causing glaciers to retreat and become less stable, upping the odds of catastrophic collapses.

This study attributes 2025 extreme rainfall event in Southeast Asia to anthropogenic climate change. Modelling shows warming increased rainfall intensity and flood risk, with further increases projected, highlighting implications for adaptation planning.

Scientists used seismic data, satellite imagery and drone surveys to rapidly identify a massive landslide as the cause of the deadly Nepal-Tibet flood. The event highlights cascading hazards, glacier instability and the need for stronger early warning.

Evidence from satellites and seismic data we have reviewed suggest that an enormous mass of bedrock and glacier ice broke off a slope north of Langtang Lirung and slammed into the valley about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) below

Experts say the Nepal-Tibet flood was driven by a glacier collapse, monsoon-saturated conditions and high exposure in a vulnerable mountain corridor. The disaster highlights cascading risks, preparedness gaps and the need for cross-border warning systems.

XAIDA is designing and applying AI-based methodologies to reveal how climate change impacts extreme weather events and to foresee their occurrence in the future.

A massive rescue and relief operation has been launched in the wake of devastating flash floods in Nepal, which were triggered by an avalanche of ice and rocks in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China near the border with Nepal.

This study, published in the journal Science, examined corals in Galapagos and found that the 1982-83 and 1997-98 El Niños – two of the strongest in recent memory – may be harbingers of more extreme events to come as the planet warms.

First international global assessment of long-term active layer monitoring data at the George Washington University Department of Geography and Environment demonstrates clear global evidence that permafrost is thawing across much of the planet.

The devastating floods that have swept through the Nepal–Tibet border region are first and foremost a human tragedy. Hundreds of people have died or remain missing.

The exact sequence of events that sent so much debris and water downstream is something we are still trying to unravel. There are a number of possibilities.