Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Risk Analysis
Spatial-Temporal Assessment of Natural Disaster Losses Using Comb- ined AHP-Entropy Weight Method: A Case Study of Jiangxi Province
Published: 2026-03-29
Subjects: Risk Analysis
The Disaster Situation Index (DSI) serves as a crucial method for natural disaster loss assessment. However, the weight determination in existing assessment practices is characterized by strong subjectivity and methodological singularity, while the classification of DSI also suffers from artificial subjective arbitrariness. To resolve these two issues, this study proposes a hybrid approach [...]
Robust Uneven Shift of Extreme Storm Surges Observed in Data Sparse Northeast Indian Ocean Cities
Published: 2026-03-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Reanalysis-driven storm surge datasets enable extreme analysis in data-sparse regions, but most studies translate these time series into extremes using a single statistical model, leaving model-selection uncertainty unquantified. In this study, we analyze ERA5-forced surge residual dataset (1950–2024) from Copernicus Climate Change Service for 11 Northeast Indian Ocean (NIO) cities using an [...]
Frictional weakening in the highly mobile 2025 Blatten (Switzerland) rock–ice avalanche
Published: 2026-03-17
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Dynamics and Dynamical Systems, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Multivariate Analysis, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Risk Analysis
Cascading slope failures in alpine environments are intensifying as glaciers retreat and slope stability adjusts to a warming climate. Yet, the mechanisms governing such large, rapidly evolving events remain poorly understood. The 28 May 2025 rock–ice avalanche from Birch Glacier, Switzerland ($\approx9.3\times10^{6}~\mathrm{m^3}$), which devastated part of the village of Blatten, provides a [...]
HIGH-RESOLUTION DIGITAL TERRAIN MODEL FOR THE ITALIAN TERRITORY
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Social and Behavioral Sciences
High-resolution digital terrain models are essential for environmental planning and territorial analyses, and provide foundations for geomorphological and hydrological applications, including flood and landslide modelling and geo-hydrological hazard and risk assessments. In Italy, airborne LiDAR surveys have improved the representation of terrain morphology in the last decade, but their coverage [...]
Governing Generative AI in Disaster Risk Management
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Risk Analysis
The increasing frequency and severity of climate-related disasters, as well as scarcity of resources to counter them, highlight the urgent need for advanced tools in assessing and managing natural hazards. Recent developments in generative artificial intelligence offer new avenues to enhance disaster risk management. Among these advancements, large language models (LLMs) hold potential for [...]
Diurnal asymmetry in heat stress intensification across Bangladesh, 1985–2024: Accelerated nighttime warming and emerging urban risk
Published: 2026-02-06
Subjects: Risk Analysis
Bangladesh’s rapidly growing cities are becoming hotter, but how heat stress is changing over the day–night cycle has remained unclear. Using 40 years (1985–2024) of hourly Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) data from ERA5-HEAT, we examined long-term changes in physiologically relevant heat stress across Bangladesh and its major cities. Results show a clear day–night imbalance in warming: [...]
Spontaneous liquefaction in saturated granular deposits: State controlled boundary and surface reconfiguration
Published: 2026-01-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, Mining Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
In the case of water-saturated, granular deposits that are at risk of liquefaction, engineers need reliable information about the spatial extent of soil deformation in the event of liquefaction. It is not so important for them to know the exact location of the first failure. However, existing anal-yses primarily deal with the triggering of liquefaction and offer only limited information on how [...]
Global potential of integrated biorefineries for leaf protein and sugar: Producing sustainable food and preventing starvation in catastrophes
Published: 2026-01-07
Subjects: Agriculture, Chemical Engineering, Engineering, Food Science, Risk Analysis
To accommodate population growth and shifting diets, the global protein supply must increase. Simultaneously, rising climate variability increases agricultural yield shocks, disrupting conventional crops. Worse, global catastrophes such as nuclear war or pandemics could collapse the global food system. Here, we turn to the potential of grasslands and plentiful legume biomass (e.g., alfalfa, [...]
Climate Network Analysis of Precipitation Regimes from WorldClim Data in Saudi Arabia
Published: 2025-12-12
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Risk Analysis
Saudi Arabia is shaped by a hydroclimatic gradient, from the hyper-arid Rub’ al-Khali desert to the semi-arid mountains in the southwest. This gradient affects runoff generation, groundwater recharge, and drought risk, yet most studies still summarize rainfall using basic statistics from station data or gridded products. This research applies climate network analysis to identify coherent rainfall [...]
FEMA Phase-Out? Catastrophic Extremes Limit Decentralization of U.S. Flood Insurance
Published: 2025-11-13
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Risk Analysis, Sustainability, Systems Engineering
The U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) faces growing solvency and affordability pressures amid proposals to decentralize FEMA and shift disaster management to states. Many catastrophic floods span state boundaries, exposing multiple decentralized insurance pools simultaneously. Using a path-independent simulation framework that integrates risk-based premiums, [...]
Tropical cyclone risk to global electricity supply
Published: 2025-09-11
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Power and Energy, Risk Analysis
To analyse the risks from Tropical Cyclones (TC) to electricity supply, we have combined a large ensemble of TC simulations with a spatial model of power networks and people served, for the entire TC belt globally. The model of electricity power failure, measured in terms of population disrupted, was calibrated against nighttime lights satellite imagery of historic TC events. Use of spatially [...]
The Largest Crop Production Shocks: Magnitude, Causes and Frequency
Published: 2025-09-04
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Food Science, Risk Analysis
Food is the foundation of our society. We often take it for granted, but stocks are rarely available for longer than a year, and food production can be disrupted by catastrophic events, both locally and globally. To highlight such major risks to the food system, we analyzed FAO crop production data from 1961 to 2023 to find the largest crop production shock for every country and identify its [...]
Assessing uncertainty in source rock properties using Monte Carlo basin modeling: Application to the Canning Basin, Australia
Published: 2025-07-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
This study presents a Monte Carlo basin modeling framework for quantifying uncertainty in source rock property predictions by integrating geological, geophysical, and geochemical inputs. The approach accounts for variability in petrological parameters from rock physics inversion, paleo-erosion magnitudes, organic facies properties, and boundary conditions to simulate source rock properties such [...]
Screening Global Solar and Wind Energy Investment Potential Accounting for Drought and Surplus
Published: 2025-07-14
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Risk Analysis, Sustainability
Climate-induced variability of solar and wind energy impacts renewable electricity scaling. Long duration renewable energy droughts, i.e., extended periods of renewable supply deficits, lead to contract penalties or use of thermo-electric sources, while long duration surpluses result in curtailment or in low energy prices and revenue. We present the first global assessment of the implied [...]
Remote sensing for sustainable river management: Evaluating watershed vulnerability for Ganga, the world’s most densely populated river basin
Published: 2025-05-30
Subjects: Risk Analysis
When standing water mixes with wastewater, it can create serious public health and environmental concerns. This scenario is particularly dangerous in densely populated urban areas with inadequate infrastructure. Such contamination threatens to cause major public health crises in the Ganga River basin where monsoonal flooding, which is exacerbated by climate change, converges with 6 billion liters [...]