Estimating and predicting natural hazards and vulnerabilities in the Himalayan region
Estimating and predicting natural hazards and vulnerabilities in the Himalayan region
Editor(s): Ankit Agarwal, Kristen Cook, Ugur Öztürk, Wolfgang Schwanghart, Roopam Shukla, and Sven Fuchs
Extreme hydrometeorological and geomorphological events account for 45 % of the fatalities and 79 % of the economic losses caused by natural hazards. Exacerbated by high seismic activity, rugged terrain such as the Himalayan landscape is particularly susceptible to generating these events, which often transform into cascading hazards where an initial event causes a downstream chain reaction (Shugar et al., 2021). These hazards interfere with increasing population pressure and expansion of settlements along rivers and new infrastructure developments such as roads and hydropower projects. Rising temperatures and changes in weather patterns in the wake of global warming likely elevate risks from hazards such as landslides, glacial lake outburst floods, riverine, and flash floods (Kraaijenbrink et al., 2017). The complexity of these hazards and their underlying processes demand scientific efforts and approaches from multiple disciplines.

The proposed special issue aims to compile recent research that estimates and predicts natural hazards and risks in the Himalayan region. We encourage research submissions that report hydro-geophysical modelling, innovative data-analysis approaches, remote sensing, and risk assessment. Multi- and transdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome. Interdisciplinary and international collaborative efforts enhance scientific discovery, and multidisciplinary research is limited despite the clear benefits. With the envisaged special issue, we further aim to amalgamate expertise, methods, and data of several research articles to advance the understanding of the impacts and changes in the extremely high mountain landscape. Our goal is to attract articles from hydro-geophysical modelling, innovative data approaches, remote-sensing-based observations, and risk/vulnerability assessment.

Download citations of all papers

13 Feb 2024
Numerical-model-derived intensity–duration thresholds for early warning of rainfall-induced debris flows in a Himalayan catchment
Sudhanshu Dixit, Srikrishnan Siva Subramanian, Piyush Srivastava, Ali P. Yunus, Tapas Ranjan Martha, and Sumit Sen
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 465–480, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-465-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-465-2024, 2024
Short summary
27 Oct 2023
More than one landslide per road kilometer – surveying and modeling mass movements along the Rishikesh-Joshimath (NH-7) highway, Uttarakhand, India
Jürgen Mey, Ravi Kumar Guntu, Alexander Plakias, Igo Silva de Almeida, and Wolfgang Schwanghart
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1975,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1975, 2023
Preprint under review for NHESS (discussion: open, 1 comment)
Short summary
20 Jul 2023
Review article: Snow and ice avalanches in high mountain Asia – scientific, local and indigenous knowledge
Anushilan Acharya, Jakob F. Steiner, Khwaja Momin Walizada, Salar Ali, Zakir Hussain Zakir, Arnaud Caiserman, and Teiji Watanabe
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 2569–2592, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2569-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2569-2023, 2023
Short summary
27 Apr 2023
Earthquake vulnerability assessment of the built environment in the city of Srinagar, Kashmir Himalaya, using a geographic information system
Midhat Fayaz, Shakil A. Romshoo, Irfan Rashid, and Rakesh Chandra
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 1593–1611, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1593-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1593-2023, 2023
Short summary
19 Apr 2023
Brief communication: The northwest Himalaya towns slipping towards potential disaster
Yaspal Sundriyal, Vipin Kumar, Neha Chauhan, Sameeksha Kaushik, Rahul Ranjan, and Mohit Kumar Punia
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 1425–1431, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1425-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1425-2023, 2023
Short summary
04 Apr 2023
Design and application of a multi-hazard risk rapid assessment questionnaire for hill communities in the Indian Himalayan region
Shivani Chouhan and Mahua Mukherjee
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 1267–1286, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1267-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-1267-2023, 2023
Short summary
21 Feb 2023
Quantifying the potential benefits of risk-mitigation strategies on future flood losses in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
Carlos Mesta, Gemma Cremen, and Carmine Galasso
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 711–731, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-711-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-711-2023, 2023
Short summary
26 Sep 2022
Rare flood scenarios for a rapidly growing high-mountain city: Pokhara, Nepal
Melanie Fischer, Jana Brettin, Sigrid Roessner, Ariane Walz, Monique Fort, and Oliver Korup
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 3105–3123, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3105-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3105-2022, 2022
Short summary
17 Aug 2022
Using Sentinel-1 radar amplitude time series to constrain the timings of individual landslides: a step towards understanding the controls on monsoon-triggered landsliding
Katy Burrows, Odin Marc, and Dominique Remy
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 2637–2653, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2637-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2637-2022, 2022
Short summary
CC BY 4.0