Weather and climate extremes, such as floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms have severe social, economic and environmental impacts. These impacts might occur concomitantly and/or propagate as cascades, affecting different sectors and going beyond the area affected by the hazard. Changes in climate might cause these events to be more intense and more frequent, increasing the disaster risks, especially in vulnerable contexts and communities with higher exposure.
One of the current paradigms faced by hydrologists, environmental and climate scientists is how to address system complexity in impact and risk assessment, and further, how to transfer this knowledge to management and policy strategies. We develop data-based methods to quantify and identify causal relationships between the impacts of weather and climate extremes at the local and global scale, leveraging information from under-explored databases, such as newspaper articles, scientific papers, meeting minutes and reports.
In collaboration with researchers from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research and from Leipzig University, we integrate qualitative and quantitative methods to provide a better understanding of the dynamics between natural hazards and the society and how we can adapt and respond to future changes.