Cascade effects of Greece using historical data of natural hazards: An operational tool in education

Climate change constitute one of the main challenges mankind has to come up against, where of crucial importance is the undertaking of initiatives collaboratively by the countries in order to counter the consequences of climate crisis. The deterioration of the environmental conditions due to the alteration of climatic conditions has increased the likelihood of occurrence of various natural hazards (e.g. floods, storms, landslides, drought events, wildfires) from 2000 to 2019 as specified by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), which reinforced the multi-hazard profile of the hazard-prone areas. Greece has been affected by several disastrous events as stated in multiple data sources of natural hazards, where wildfires, floods and earthquakes have induced detrimental effects. However, there is a plethora both of hazard interrelations and types of hazards interactions that can exacerbate the implications caused by natural hazards. On the other hand, education and communication of hazard cascades will contribute substantially to the reduction of disasters, therefore it is indispensable dissemination activities of multi-hazard approaches to be implemented. The purpose of this research is to propose a service that leverages historical geospatial data or spatially referenced data, based on the literature of domino/triggering effect, in order to promote and assist preparedness actions for disaster chains in the context of education.

 

Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Research Committee of the National Technical University of Athens (N.T.U.A.), which awarded Michail-Christos Tsoutsos with a Doctoral Scholarship and, thus, enabled him to carry out the research required for this kind of study. Grant number: 65/219100.