MATRIX - New Multi-Hazard and Multi-Risk Assessment Methods for Europe
MATRIX - a collaborative research project, coordinated by the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) - aimed to develop multi-type hazard and risk assessment and mitigation tools for Europe to tackle multiple natural hazards within a common framework. This allows future analysts to optimize the risk assessment process, contributes to rationalising data management for hazards and vulnerability reduction, and supports cost-effective decisions considering a multi-hazard perspective. Multi-type hazards relate to hazard interactions like cascading effects and the rapid increase in vulnerability during successive hazards. Hazards like volcanoes, coastal and fluvial floods, landslides, wind storms and wildfires were considered.
Major task were to:
1. develop new methodologies for multi-type hazard and risk assessment, with a focus on a) risk comparability, b) cascading hazards and c) time-dependent vulnerability within the framework of conjoint or successive hazardous events.
2. compare this new multi-hazard and multi-risk analytical framework with the state-of-the-art in probabilistic single-risk analysis.
3. establish an IT framework for test cases analysis following a multi-risk approach, considering both real-world test cases or by exercises involving an idealised synthetic (or virtual) test example.
4. disseminate the results to the relevant communities, end users and stakeholders, in particular National Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction, and to incorporate their views into the development of multi-risk assessment methodologies and tools.
The various tools and methods were assessed in three test study areas: Naples, Guadeloupe and Cologne
DKKV was mainly involved in the MATRIX dissemination activities as described in point 4.