Linking Disasters for Risk Reduction (MATRIX)

Overview

Many areas in Europe are at risk from natural hazards that can come in combinations, such as landslides triggered by earthquakes or floods caused by heavy winter storms. Although engineers and disaster managers usually deal with disasters as individual incidents, emergency response planning would be more effective if it recognized the links between events.

MATRIX researchers are developing methods and tools to better cope with cascading or conjoined natural disasters within a common framework. The project is analyzing historic data from individual disasters to develop comparisons of the specific risks from each type of hazard. The analysis will lead to a better understanding of risks arising from one disaster that can trigger or contribute to yet another disaster. The research also examines how damage from one event makes a community more susceptible to damage from a second disaster.

MATRIX will base its analysis on hazard data from three case studies: Naples, Italy; Cologne, Germany; and the French West Indies. Researchers are also creating a virtual city that will allow them to simulate the effects of everything from flash floods and landslides to volcanic eruptions and rises in sea level.

IIASA Research

Institute researchers are analyzing how conducting an integrated risk assessment of multiple hazards compares to single hazard assessments and how decision making might be improved. They are also examining the unique challenges faced by decision makers who must do multi-hazard risk assessments.

Last edited: 21 June 2012