The Andes region is particularly exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, volcanic activity, and heatwaves. For this reason, EOC scientists edited a special issue aiming to inform the disaster risk community about the latest developments, capabilities, and limitations regarding comprehensive multi-risk assessment.
Special Issue „Multi-risk assessment in the Andes region”
All 11 papers of the special issue are available online on the website of the publisher “Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences”.
Image: 1/3, Credit:
European Geosciences Union
Tsunami warning sign on the coast near Lima, Peru
Peru's capital Lima is located on the Pacific coast at the foot of the Andes and, together with the neighbouring port city of Callao, forms the country's largest metropolitan area with around 11 million people. Lima is the commercial and industrial centre as well as the cultural metropolis of the country. Settlements and infrastructure extend right up to the coast and the risk posed by earthquakes and tsunamis is particularly high for the people in this region.
The coastal region of Valparaíso is highly prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. More than one million inhabitants live in the greater Valparaíso area. In the past, the region has been exposed to earthquakes, tsunamis, heavy rainfall, landslides and forest fires, some of which have had serious consequences.
This special issue titled “Multi-risk assessment in the Andes region” aims at contributing to the growing research on risk assessment, starting from hazard-specific evaluations and moving towards complex hazard situations and multi-risk assessment. It features 11 research papers along the prevention and preparedness phases of the disaster management cycle.
For example, there are articles devoted to development of scenarios to describe possible events and their effects. The use of satellite imagery plays a crucial role in almost all papers while a particular use case is demonstrated in the detection and categorization of urban structures and related vulnerabilities.
The special issue demonstrate the importance of involving users and their feedback in order to transfer methodological approaches and research questions from theory to practice. Possible bottlenecks only become apparent during the transition from scientific applications to preoperational prototypes.
All articles in this special issue can be downloaded free of charge from the journal’s website.
