Review article: Towards multi-hazard and multi-risk indicators – a review and recommendations for development and implementation

Abstract

Undertaking a natural hazard or risk assessment from a single hazard approach can be considered incomplete where the interactions between and impacts from multiple hazards and risks are not considered. However, the development of indicators in disaster risk management has only recently started to explicitly include multi-hazard and multi-risk approach. Indicators contain observable and measurable characteristics to simplify information to understand the state of a concept or phenomenon, and/or to monitor it over time. To date, there have been limited efforts to understand how indicators are being used in this context. Using a systematic review, 194 publications were identified that mention indicators, covering hazards, vulnerability, and risk/impact. We find that the majority of studies exploring indicators are multi-layer single hazards and risks; in other words, they did not include the interactions between hazards. The results also demonstrate a predominance of studies on hazard indicators (88 %) versus risk indicators, with a dominance of hydro-meteorological indicators. Only 20 % of the studies integrated hazard, vulnerability and risk/impact. Based on the findings, we propose 12 recommendations to enable the uptake of indicators, from advancing research into multi-hazard and multi-risk indicator frameworks, to enabling partnerships to ensure the inclusion of stakeholder needs in indicator development.