About this Research Topic

Background

The number of natural disasters that are triggered globally, particularly hydrology-related catastrophes (droughts, floods, rainstorms), has accelerated sharply in recent decades, tripling in quantity between 1975-1984 and 2005-2014. The consequences of hydrological extremes affect humankind at a global level, menacing lives and livelihoods, human security, and sustainable development. Hydrometeorological hazards account for >90% of natural hazards and human injuries, and for >50% of the total fatalities. Climate change represents one of the main drivers of the increasing risk posed by hydrological hazards, through escalation of the latter’s frequency, severity, duration, spatial extent, and timing. Aside from climate drivers, the risk associated with hydrological extremes and their concurrence as compound hazards also rises as more people and economic assets are exposed and remain weak and susceptible to the impacts of hazards.

Risk analysis of hydrological extremes constitutes a challenging task, due to the complex interactions existing among different hazards (compound and cascading events), interdependencies between exposure and vulnerability elements, spatiotemporal variations of the risk components, and deep uncertainties in risk estimates. Despite the importance of assessing risks associated with hydrological extremes, the number of comprehensive studies on the matter remains limited. The important issues influencing risk estimates warrant investigation and must be addressed in order to formulate efficient adaptation and risk management policies, and practices for reducing hazard impacts, as well as for ensuring that appropriate response measures are in place in the event of natural disasters.

This Research Topic aims to advance our understanding of past, current, and future risks of hydroclimatological extremes and tackles challenges associated with the modelling of the fundamental elements of risk (exposure, vulnerability, hazard) and their integration. More specifically, this Research Topic aims to address broader aspects of hydroclimatological hazards, including risk analysis, social, economic, and environmental aspects of vulnerability, novel statistical methods to cope with the nonstationarity in hydroclimatological time series and the interdependencies between hazards, and, finally, the application of different data sources from ground-based records to satellite and reanalysis data. We aim to tackle emerging challenges associated with the risk assessment and the attribution analysis of compound and cascading events, new issues for which a holistic framework is missing.

We are particularly interested in Original Research articles, as well as Review articles that address the following non-exhaustive list of topics:
1) Handling and processing of big data for detailed and/or large-scale risk studies;
2) Challenges of data limitation in low- to middle-income countries for quantifying risk;
3) Using high-resolution climate models and bias-correction for improving hazard quantification;
4) Analysis of compound and cascading events;
5) Understanding of physical processes behind changes in risk;
6) Hydrological extreme event attribution;
7) Physical, social, economic, and environmental dimensions of vulnerability;
8) Use of satellite imagery for developing exposure data use;
9) New methodologies, techniques, and statistical approaches for risk assessments;
10) Added value of multivariate risk analyses compared with univariate analyses;
11) Spatial/regional climatic and socioeconomic drivers of risk;
12) Spatio-temporal evolution of risk;
13) Validation of risk assessment outcomes against observed impacts;
14) Uncertainty analysis of risk assessments;
15) Sustainable development under the deep uncertainty of climatic and socioeconomic changes;
16) Disaster risk reduction and management strategies; and,
17) Adaptation and resilience: planning and action.

Keywords: Flood, Drought, Non-stationarity, Climate change, Socioeconomic developments, Hazard, Vulnerability, Exposure, Disaster risk reduction

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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