Illustrative: a joint probability density whose dependence shifts over time
Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Hazards, Disasters and Resilience · Department of Disaster Risk Reduction and Early Warning
Hazards that come together, in sequence or by triggering one another
Multi-hazard and compound risk assessment
Disasters rarely arrive one hazard at a time: an earthquake triggers landslides and a dam failure, a cyclone brings wind, surge and rain together, a drought dries the fuel a fire then burns.
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- Hazard interactions: triggering, amplification and coincidence
- Compound events and joint probabilities
- Consecutive disasters and changing vulnerability
- Cascading impacts across exposed systems
- The UNDRR and ISC Hazard Information Profiles
- Multi-hazard risk indices and maps
- Dependence modelling with copulas
- Natech events and technological cascades
- Multi-hazard early warning
Build a twin of any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow multi-hazard and compound risk assessment on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
- Terrain 59 to 3,044 m
- 2 reference earthquakes, M7.5 to M7.8
- 3,643,786 people in the box, 2020
- Earthquakes M4.5 and above, past week: read live when the 3D twin opens
- USGS ShakeMap intensity contours: read live when the 3D twin opens
Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.
Flat plan of the same data: relief, the two epicentres with magnitude and depth, the WorldPop count grid and the numbers below. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
Climate signals in Canada
Surface heat, rain, snow, sea ice, marine heat and water storage, each a dated satellite or model product, over Canada.
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Layers 2
Climate signals
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Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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Climate signals, framed on Canada.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GPM IMERG precipitation, NASA Precipitation Processing System; distributed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GRACE and GRACE-FO JPL mascon solution, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- Live: NASA EONET Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- Air quality forecast, 5 days, PM2.5 (CAMS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information 2026.
- Past year, daily temperature (ERA5 via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
- Past year, daily temperature and sunshine (NASA POWER): These data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science/Applied Science Program..
- Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Optional layers (21 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Land surface temperature, day, 8-day composite: VIIRS NOAA-20 Level 3, 8-day, NASA LANCE · 14 Sep 2026
- Precipitation rate, daily mean: GPM IMERG, NASA GES DISC · 12 Oct 2026
- Snow cover: VIIRS NOAA-20 NDSI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Sea ice concentration: GHRSST MUR, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Water storage anomaly, monthly: GRACE-FO JPL mascons, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · July 2022
The subject, methods and measures and debates and bodies
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For risk analysts, modellers and planners who assess places exposed to more than one hazard and need methods that treat hazards jointly rather than adding single-hazard results.
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From two margins to a joint return period: how dependence between surge and rainfall multiplies the chance of a compound flood
Each driver has its own exceedance probability; a dependence measure fitted to concurrent records sets a copula; the copula gives the chance that both exceed their thresholds in the same event, which under dependence can be ten times the product of the margins, and the design standard has to be set on that joint number.
Sources: Wahl, Jain, Bender, Meyers and Luther, Increasing risk of compound flooding from storm surge and rainfall for major US cities (2015); Zscheischler et al., Future climate risk from compound events (2018); Nelsen, An Introduction to Copulas (2006); Gill and Malamud, Reviewing and visualising the interactions of natural hazards (2014).
At a glance, hub and courses
Multi-hazard and compound risk assessment at a glance
risksacademy.comhazards-resiliencediscipline
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Key terms
Compound event
A combination of drivers or hazards, simultaneous or successive, whose joint occurrence produces an impact larger than each alone.
Hazard interaction
A relationship in which one hazard triggers, amplifies or coincides with another.
Joint return period
The average interval between events in which two variables both exceed their thresholds, which depends on their dependence.
Consecutive disasters
Disasters that strike before recovery from an earlier one is complete, so vulnerability has changed.
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