The design of coastal protection affected by tropical cyclones is often based solely on the analysis of historical tropical cyclones (TCs). The simulation of numerous synthetic TC tracks based on historical data can overcome this limitation. In this paper, a new method for the generation of synthetic TC tracks is proposed, called the Tropical Cyclone Wind Statistical Estimation Tool (TCWiSE). TCWiSE can simulate thousands of tracks and wind fields in any oceanic basin based on any data source.

The main objective of this paper was to analyze differences in soil moisture responses to drought for each biome of Brazil. For that we used satellite data from the European Space Agency from 2009 to 2015. We found an overall soil moisture decline of −0.5 % yr⁻¹ at the country level and identified the most vulnerable biomes of Brazil. This information is crucial to enhance the national drought early warning system and develop strategies for drought risk reduction and soil moisture conservation.

We have developed a statistical–parametric model of tropical cyclones (TCs), to undertake hazard and risk assessments at continental scales. The model enables users to build an understanding of the likelihood and magnitude of TC-related wind speeds across full ocean basins but at a fine spatial resolution. The model can also be applied to single events, either scenarios or forecast events, to inform detailed impact assessments.

Flash floods are among the most devastating and lethal natural hazards worldwide. The study of such events is important as flash floods are poorly understood and documented processes, especially in deserts. A small portion of the studied basin (1 %–20 %) experienced extreme rainfall intensities resulting in local flash floods of high magnitudes. Flash floods started and reached their peak within tens of minutes. Forecasts poorly predicted the flash floods mostly due to location inaccuracy.

Southeastern Australia suffered from disastrous bushfires during the 2019/20 fire season, raising the question whether these have become more likely due to climate change. We found no attributable trend in extreme annual or monthly low precipitation but a clear shift towards more extreme heat. However, this shift is underestimated by the models. Analysing fire weather directly, we found that the chance has increased by at least 30 %, but due to the underestimation it could well be higher.

In this study, we combine climate model results with a hydrological model to investigate uncertainties in flood and drought risk. With the climate model, 2000 years of current climate was created. The hydrological model consisted of several building blocks that we could adapt. In this way, we could investigate the effect of these hydrological building blocks on high- and low-flow risk in four different climate zones with return periods of up to 500 years.

Sinkhole formation and post-collapse deformation in the Solotvyno salt mining area was studied where the salt dissolution due to water intrusion poses a significant risk. Based on a Sentinel-1 data set, remarkable surface deformation with a maximum rate of 5 cm/yr was revealed, and it was demonstrated that the deformation process has a linear characteristic although the mining activity was ended more than 10 years ago.

Drought is a major natural hazard that causes large losses for farmers. This study evaluated drought severity based on a drought classification scheme using NDVI and LST, which was related to the ENSO anomalies. In addition, the spatial distribution of NDVI was associated with precipitation and air temperature at the local level. Our findings show that drought severity increases during El Niño years, and as a consequence the socio-economic drought risk of farmers will likely increase.

This study presents a state-of-the-art approach to assess flood damage for each unique road segment in Europe. We find a mean total flood risk of EUR 230 million per year for all individual road segments combined. We identify flood hotspots in the Alps, along the Sava River, and on the Scandinavian Peninsula. To achieve this, we propose a new set of damage curves for roads and challenge the community to validate and improve these. Analysis of network effects can be easily added to our analysis.

In order to address a need for a debris flow or debris avalanche model that can be applied regionally with relatively few inputs, we developed and present herein an agent-based landslide-simulation model called DebrisFlow Predictor. DebrisFlow Predictor is a fully predictive, probabilistic debris flow runout model. It produces realistic results and can be applied easily to entire regions. We hope that the model will provide useful insight into hazard and risk assessments where it is applicable.

Extreme wet and dry rainfall periods over Senegal provided by satellite, reanalyses, and ground observations are compared. Despite a spatial coherence of seasonal rainfall accumulation between all products, discrepancies are found at intra-seasonal timescales. All datasets highlight comparable seasonal cycles of dry and wet spells. Nevertheless, CHIRPS and TAMSAT are close to observations for the dry spells, whereas TRMM obtains the closest values of wet spells as regards the observations.

This article assesses different uncertainties in the analysis of flood risk and found the runoff generated before the river routing is the primary uncertainty source. This calls for attention to be focused on selecting an appropriate runoff for the flood analysis. The uncertainties are reflected in the flood water depth, inundation area and the exposure of the population and economy to the floods.

Climate change is leading to an increase in extreme events and enforces the development of adaptation strategies to face coastal risk. These strategies modify the inequalities barely considered during the decision-making process and question the resilience of these territories. On the French Atlantic coast, the study reveals that the managed retreat strategy seems the most sustainable over time, while the holding the coastline strategy reinforces inequalities and costs for the whole society.

The aim of this paper is to review and structure current developments in resilience research in the field of climate change studies, in terms of the approaches, definitions, models, and commitments that are typical for naturalist and constructivist research and propose a research agenda of topics distilled from current developments in resilience research.

This study focuses on the heavy precipitation event of 14 and 15 October 2018, which caused deadly flash floods in the Aude basin in south-western France. The case is studied from a meteorological point of view using various operational numerical weather prediction systems, as well as a unique combination of observations from both standard and personal weather stations. The peculiarities of this case compared to other cases of Mediterranean heavy precipitation events are presented.

In mountainous regions rockfall is a common geomorphic process. We selected four study sites that feature different rock types. High-resolution terrestrial laser scanning data were acquired to measure the block size and block shape (axial ratio) of rockfall particles on the scree deposits. Laser scanning data were also used to characterize the morphology of these landforms. Our results show that hill slope and rock particle properties govern rock particle runout in a complex manner.