The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Hazard science studies the natural processes that can cause harm: atmospheric extremes such as heat, storms and heavy rain; hydrological extremes such as floods and drought; fire; and geophysical events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and tsunamis. Climate science adds the long view, explaining how the statistics of weather are changing. This page defines the field, explains why it matters and shows how it connects to other risks.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For field overview, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on daytime surface heat, rain, flood water and true-colour imagery, framed on World; 2 further NASA layers wait in the list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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The Climate and Hazards field covers physical climate risks, weather extremes and hazard interactions grounded in observed and modelled evidence. Experts in it study questions such as climate baselines and heat and drought, with methods such as climate and atmospheric science as well as Earth and geophysical science. Its counterparts at GRF and GRA look at the same systems through governance and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Building codes, flood defences, insurance prices, crop plans, water allocations and public health warnings all rest on an estimate of how often and how severely a hazard will occur. Historically those estimates were drawn from the observed record on the assumption that the future would resemble the past. For climate-driven hazards, that assumption no longer holds, and the observational record itself is short relative to the rare events that matter most.
The field therefore combines observations, physical understanding and models to estimate hazards that may not yet have been observed at a given place. Doing so honestly, with clear uncertainty, is one of the main contributions science can make to risk management.
How hazards have changed and how much of that change is attributable to warming. See climate baselines.
The physics and statistics of heat, drought, floods, storms, fire and geohazards. See heat and drought, flood and storm, wildfire and land and earthquakes and geohazards.
How hazards combine and cascade. See compound hazards.
What scenario models project and how far to trust them. See climate projections.
How hazard information reaches decisions. See climate services and warnings.
Hazards matter through exposure and vulnerability: the people, assets and services in harm's way and their capacity to cope. That is why this platform links to Disaster Resilience and Recovery, Critical Infrastructure and Water Nexus within GCRI, and to counterparts at The Global Risks Forum (GRF) and The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), such as Reinsurance and Catastrophe. Dependencies and consequences maps the links.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Compound event | Two or more hazards or drivers occurring together or in sequence whose joint impact exceeds what either would cause alone, such as drought followed by intense rain; IPCC assessments use the term. |
| Early warning system | An integrated system of hazard monitoring, forecasting, risk assessment, warning communication and preparedness that lets people and institutions act before a hazard strikes, in UNDRR terminology. |
| Climate services | The provision of climate information in ways that help people and organizations make decisions. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from the interactions and dependencies within and between systems, where a shock can propagate and threaten the functioning of the whole. |
The field draws on climate science, geoscience, extreme value theory, Earth observation and forecasting. Assumptions and limits are set out on methods and uncertainty.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.