Climate and Natural Hazard Risks,

Edition 1

Editors: By Peter Sammonds, Lisa Guppy and Ting Sun, Lecturer in Climate and Meteorological Hazard Risks, University College London, UK

Publication Date: 27 Mar 2026

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Climate and Natural Hazard Risks is an in-depth examination of the physical, environmental, economic, and social impacts of climate change and natural hazards on vulnerable populations in different regions around the world. The authors open with the simple question “What is risk?,” taking a detailed look at historical and global trends and risk frameworks as they relate to the Earth system and climate change. The authors then examine the drivers of social and physical vulnerability. From there, the chapters systematically review different hazards and their implications for risk (hurricanes, cyclones, flooding, extreme temperatures, food insecurity, earthquakes, tsunamis). The authors then delve into the latest methods and research for multihazard risk assessment. The book closes with challenging explorations of resilience, and environmental and social transitions for climate change. Students, practitioners and policy-makers working across climate science, hazard risk assessment, disaster management and humanitarian response will find this instructive and thought-provoking text essential reading.

Key Features

Examines hazard risk and vulnerability through a transdisciplinary approach
Demonstrates the links between climate change, natural hazards, humanitarian crises and disasters
Explains modern approaches to hazard, vulnerability and risk analyses providing an analytical toolbox, case studies and worked examples
An accessible text book for the student with up-to-date research and methods for the professional

About the author

By Peter Sammonds, Professor of Geophysics and Climate Risks, University College London, UK; Lisa Guppy, Lecturer in Global Humanitarian Studies, University College London, UK and Ting Sun, Lecturer in Climate and Meteorological Hazard Risks, University College London, UK

1: What is Risk?
• Key concepts in risk: hazard, vulnerability, climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Why is disaster risk important?
• Disaster risk equations.
• Exploring Disaster Data.
• Case study: Hypothesis testing that natural hazards are increasing in frequency, severity and impact due to climate change in the Horn of Africa.

2: Global Trends
• Global trends in development.
• Global trends in disasters.
• Global trends in human displacement.
• Modern approaches to quantitative data analysis.
• Case study: Climate-change driven migration in Bangladesh.

3: Risk Frameworks and Mechanisms
• International frameworks and understand how they are complied with.
• Paris Agreement, UNFCC, IPCC, Sendai Framework, UN SDGs.
• How climate action and risk reduction are implemented at international, national and municipal levels.
• Global risk governance.
• Loss and damage to climate change.
• Disaster management and crisis response planning,
• Case study: Contrasting UK and Nepal disaster risk reduction frameworks.

4: Dynamic Earth
• Earth as a planet in the solar system.
• Plate tectonics and volcanism.
• Evolution of the Earth’s surface.
• Ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere system.
• Oceans: ENSO, IOD, Meridional Atlantic overturning
• Evolution of the atmosphere
• Case study: Coupling of the dynamics of the solid and fluid Earth in the Himalayas: implications for South and East Asian water resources.
• Case study: Seasonal yellow dust storms across China.

5: Earth’s Climate
• History of climate science
• How does the Earth's climate system work?
• Models of Earth's climate and complex interactions between physical processes.
• Global warming.
• Sea Level Rise.
• Foundations of climate modelling.
• Applications of big data and machine learning.
• Case study: Bengal Delta using Earth Observation data.
• Case study: Melting sea ice and transport of pollutants in the Arctic Ocean.

6: Climate Change: Threat Multiplier
• How climate change impacts exacerbate humanitarian need in different contexts.
• Key "threat multipliers" in climate-change-vulnerable areas.
• What makes people vulnerable?
• Climate change and health.
• Participatory research methods.
• Case study: Afghanistan.
• Case study: Pacific small island developing states.

8: Hurricanes and Cyclones
• Hurricane hazard and related storm surge.
• Hurricanes and climate change.
• Qualitative analysis of local expert interviews.
• Vulnerability in context.
• Case study: Dominica, Caribbean.

9: Flooding
• Understand key concepts and drivers of flooding.
• Describe how flooding and forced displacement are trending and how these linked concepts.
• Tools and datasets that analyze floods and human movement in humanitarian contexts.
• Case study: Contrasting the Lynmouth flash flood of 1952 and Rhine floods of 2021.
• Case study: Indus River.

10: Heat and Cold Waves
• Why do people call heat waves "the silent killer"?
• Human thermal comfort under heat waves.
• Urban heat islands.
• Heat waves and wildfires.
• Uncertainty in future temperature extremes.
• Case study: Chinese megacity.
• Case study: Polar vortex across northern Europe.

10: Drought and Food Security
• Understanding drought as a natural and anthropomorphic hazard.
• Understanding drought vulnerability.
• Analysis of drought and climate change.
• Use of drought tools and datasets.
• Case Study: Australia.

12: Geological Hazards
• Mechanics of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, lahars and tsunami.
• Why can't we seem ever to predict earthquakes?
• When things go wrong: The Haiti earthquake of 2010.
• Case study: Contrasting interplate earthquakes in California versus intraplate earthquakes in China.
• Case study: Eruption of Mt St Helens, USA.

13: Probabilistic Hazard Assessment
• How can statistics help us prepare for natural hazards?
• Statistical distributions for natural hazards events.
• Forecasting and uncertainty.
• Hazard maps.
• Infrastructure and building codes.
• Case study: 2023 Turkey earthquake.

14: Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment
• What are the risks from multiple natural hazards?
• What is our perception of risk from natural hazards?
• Risk Assessment Framework: Analytic Hierarchy Process.
• Feedbacks, multi-hazard and cascading contexts.
• Early warning systems.
• Case study: Rohingya refugee camps.

15: Resilience
• What is resilience?
• Risk communication.
• Engineered resilience versus social resilience.
• Financial risk transfer mechanisms.
• Case study: Tohoku tsunami and Fukushima crisis, 2011.
• Case study: Microfinance initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa,

16: Transitions
• How do environmental transitions drive social transitions?
• Gender responsive resilience.
• Impacts on culture and heritage.
• Disasters, climate change, extreme events, and biodiversity and habitat loss.
• Future cities.
• Managing and communication of major environmental transitions
• Case study: Somerset Levels, UK.

Appendix 1: Glossary of Terms and Definitions
Appendix 2: Geographical Information Systems
Appendix 3: Analytical Hierarchy Process
Appendix 4: Quantitative Methods
Appendix 5: Qualitative Methods

ISBN: 9780443273681

Page Count: 275

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Students, post-graduates, faculty, and researchers in Climate Science, Environmental Science, Disaster Science, Disaster Management, Disaster Risk Management