Four large drainages from glacial lakes occurred during 2006–2014 in the western Teskey Range, Kyrgyzstan. These floods caused extensive damage, killing people and livestock, as well as destroying property and crops. Due to their subsurface outlet, we refer to these short-lived glacial lakes as being of the tunnel-type, a type that drastically grows and drains over a few months.

Winds, waves and storm surges can inflict severe damage in coastal areas. To improve adaptability for such events, a better understanding of storm-induced coastal flooding events is necessary. This article is dedicated to evaluating wave and surge reconstruction methods based on available reanalyses data for French and Bulgarian coasts. This study shows that the wave and surge models should be forced by downscaled winds rather than modelled reanalyses.

This paper dedicatedly reviews the progress and development of pre-seismic precursors and anomaly detection methods in this decade. Although several important problems still remain in this domain at present, developments of these two aspects can enrich available information sources, provide advanced tools for multilevel earthquake monitoring, and improve short- and medium-term forecasting, which should play a large and growing role in pre-seismic anomaly research from optical satellite data.

This work proposes a comprehensive method to assess rainfall thresholds for landslide initiation using centenary landslide and rainfall data. The method includes the identification of critical rainfall related to each landslide event, the calculation and calibration of rainfall thresholds and the evaluation of rain gauge spatial representativeness. Results show that thresholds based on a probabilistic approach are highly recommended and can be easily included in early warning systems.

This paper describes the surveys we performed in 2014 and 2016 by means of UAVs and terrestrial photogrammetry to monitor the Forni Glacier, one of the largest glaciers in the Italian Alps. We investigated the hazards related to the glacier collapse, which have been increasing recently due to the high ice melting rate. Our approach is feasible and low cost and we will repeatedly monitor the glacier to provide rapid hazard detection services to help the tourism sector.

An analysis was made of the loss of life directly caused by Hurricane Harvey. Information was collected for 70 fatalities that occurred directly due to the event. Most of the fatalities occurred in the greater Houston area, which was most severely affected by extreme rainfall and heavy flooding. The majority of fatalities in this area were recovered outside the designated 100- and 500-year flood zones. Most fatalities occurred due to drowning (81 %), particularly in and around vehicles.

Remotely piloted aerial systems can acquire on-demand ultra-high-resolution images that can be used for the identification of active processes like landslides or volcanic activities but also for the definition of effects of earthquakes, wildfires and floods. In this paper, we present a review of published literature that describes experimental methodologies developed for the study and monitoring of natural hazards.

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.

Reliable information on the extent of climate change and its projected future impacts on transport infrastructure is of prime importance for the smooth functioning of societies. Rainfall events which may trigger landslides are analysed until the end of this century and compared to present-day conditions. Results indicate overall increases of landslide activity, especially in areas with structured terrain. Derived findings support proactive adaptation to rainfall-induced landslide exposure.

The paper attempts to create a new technique for assessing the current state of land degradation. Assessment of land degradation is difficult, because it includes a complex process. This assessment, using RS and GIS seems to be more realistic in finding the degree of degradation, because it is more related to its impact on land productivity. It is hoped that this attempt, which is the first attempt of its kind in the world, will be found applicable for other regions.

While the concept of snow and avalanche climates is widely used to describe the general nature of avalanche hazard, no research has described the hazard character of avalanche climates in detail. We use Canadian avalanche bulletin data that use the conceptual model of avalanche hazard from 2009/2010 to 2016/2017 to identify common hazard situations and calculate their seasonal prevalence. Our results provide detailed insights into the nature and variability of avalanche hazard in western Canada.

This study was conducted on three alluvial fans located in Iran using a combination of the FAN model, the hydraulic portion of the FLO-2D model and geomorphological information. Initial stages included three steps: (a) identifying the alluvial fans' landforms, (b) determining the active and inactive areas of alluvial fans, and (c) delineating 100-year flood within these selected areas. The goal of this research was to introduce a simple but effective solution to estimate the flood hazards.

Natural hazards such as snow avalanches, debris flows and volcanic activity represent a risk to mountain communities. This is particularly the case where documentary records about these processes are rare. As a result, decisions on risk management and land-use planning are based on other sources such tree-ring data and process models. Our study was conducted at Valle Las Trancas in Chile, where we evaluated the dynamics of avalanches and other natural hazards which threaten its population.

Stability analysis is very important for landslide early warning, especially the continuous stability, but there are some limitations in obtaining continuous stability by using traditional stability analysis methods. In view of this, we have further explored the displacement monitoring data in order to find new indicators and methods that can show landslide stability changing regularities.

We propose a method to evaluate a French document effectiveness made by mayors and addressed to the public in order to provide information on major hazards. Our results highlight potential dysfunctions of the document, their causes and consequences and list detection elements to identify those dysfunctions. Those detection elements are about three types (content, form and regulatory compliance) and will be used to build a future evaluation effectiveness model as a decision-aid tool for mayors.

Despite the increased attention given to critical infrastructure resilience in the context of natural hazards and disasters discussions on the role of social vulnerability assessments and minimum supply considerations for governing critical infrastructure failures remain scarce. Based on a structured literature review the paper responds to the identified gaps by developing a heuristic model on the linkages between the three topics and sketches out recommendations for a future research agenda.

This study looks at the importance of coral reefs and sand dunes in protecting the coast against flooding by storms. Many reefs and dunes are being degraded by human activities, making coastal areas more vulnerable. A computer model is used to look at the effects of reef and dune degradation on coastal flooding in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. Results show that the conservation of both the reef and dune is important to protect the coast and decrease infrastructure losses in the short to medium term.

The likelihood of severe weather events in synoptically weakly forced thunderstorm (WFT) environments is best characterized by lapse-rate-based parameters. These measures, also among the most accurate model-derived variables, are posited to best capture the subtle convective environmental differences that favor WFT severity. Forecasters should consider weighting their WFT forecasts in favor of lapse-rate-based parameters over others that may be more sensitive to model biases.

This paper presents an integrated approach to assessing floods and droughts in the transboundary Mékrou River basin, West Africa, combining climatic trends analysis and a household survey. The multi-variable trend analysis estimates, at the biophysical level, the climate variability and the occurrence of floods and droughts. These results are coupled with household survey data that reveal the opinions of local residents, the observed climate variability, and the costs of floods and droughts.