The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Risk Academy, a Nexortium programmeRisk Science and MethodsDepartment of Quantitative Risk Analysis
Hazard, exposure and vulnerability as the components of a catastrophe model
A catastrophe model chains a hazard event set, an exposure inventory and a vulnerability function into a loss distribution.
risksacademy.comrisk-sciencediscipline
Twin figures for the central Apennines: L'Aquila, Amatrice and Norcia, counted from its layers at their stated dates.
For Catastrophe, exposure and vulnerability modelling: the faculty's twin of L'Aquila on the planet map, the globe and in 3D. Pick a generator, switch layers, run the instruments; every layer prints its provider and date.
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 three reference epicentres with magnitude and depth, and the numbers below; the sampler's figure shows one precomputed field with its parameters. The 3D twin opens on devices with WebGL once its data and library have been checked.
The map loads from this site as it nears the view (MapLibre 6.9.1, checked by hash).
The discipline teaches exposure data and building inventories, vulnerability and fragility functions, the components of a catastrophe model and open models that expose them, event sets and exceedance curves, secondary uncertainty and model validation, with the twin's Monte Carlo sampler as the hazard module (an intensity prediction equation with its sigma over hexagonal cells) and its ShakeMap contours as one realisation. A graduate can assemble the components of a model from open data, run an event set to an exceedance curve and validate the result against a recorded event.
This area covers how risk is estimated from hazard, exposure and vulnerability: exposure data and building inventories, vulnerability and fragility functions, the components of catastrophe models, event sets and exceedance curves, secondary uncertainty and model validation, including open models. It is taught in the department of Quantitative Risk Analysis, Faculty of Risk Science and Methods, through 2 courses with it as primary discipline and 1 more that also teach it.
8 subtopics, taught across its courses and labs.
Recent developments in catastrophe, exposure and vulnerability modelling, each with its source; sources checked on 16 October 2026. Summaries are short readings of the source; follow the link for the full account.
News and research as they are published, per discipline, with the faculty's other tools.
The newest research, preprints, news and humanitarian reports for Catastrophe, exposure and vulnerability modelling, each with its source and date, load here. Open the research and news hub
From the Academy's risk taxonomy: the discipline's own entries and those of its primary courses, with how many courses teach each.
No course with this primary discipline is open yet; these are planned, so you can prepare with the courses also taught here.
Courses with this primary discipline0 open, 2 in preparation
| Lab | What you do in it | Courses using it |
|---|---|---|
| Exposure lab | Overlay people and assets with hazard footprints | 3 |
| Map lab | Read hazard, exposure and boundaries on real maps | 3 |
| Geo quiz | Check spatial reasoning on where hazards and systems meet | 2 |
| GeoAI lab | Apply Earth observation and machine learning to open imagery | 1 |
These courses count in their own primary discipline and also teach this one; they do not count towards its achievement as primary courses.
Also taught here1 courses that count in another discipline
Cited as places where the subject is practised; the institutions named are sources here, and Risk Academy hosts every course.
Nexus Foundry system pages describe what each system and its rooms are designed to do; they are not a service on offer, and studying here gives no access to them.
The catalogue lists each course with its outcomes, labs, hours and level.