New Multi-Hazard and Multi-Risk Assessment Methods for Europe (MATRIX)

A variety of natural extreme events, including earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, river floods, winter storms, wildfires and coastal phenomena, threaten different regions of Europe. In both their occurrence and their consequences, different hazards are often causally related. Classes of interaction include triggered events, cascade effects and the rapid increase in vulnerability during successive hazards. Effective and efficient risk reduction, therefore, often needs to rest on a location-based synoptic view. Planners and policy-makers, and the scientists who inform their judgements, usually treat the hazards and risks related to such events separately from each other, neglecting interdependencies between the different types of phenomena, as well as the importance of risk comparability. The main objective of MATRIX is to develop methods and tools to tackle multiple natural hazards within a common framework. This will allow future analysts to optimise the risk assessment process, will contribute to rationalising data management for hazards and vulnerability reduction, and will support cost-effective decisions on structural and non-structural mitigation/adaptation measures following a multi-hazard perspective.