Solutions found in nature should be our first line of defence against the increasing number of climate change-related natural disasters, say experts from the University of Surrey.
Surrey’s Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), led by Professor Prashant Kumar, is working with collaborators across Europe as a part of the OPERANDUM project that aims to manage the rising impact of severe weather and climate related hazards across European and non-European territories using nature-based solutions (NBS).
In a paper published by the journal Environment Research the team from GCARE categorised natural hazards into four groups — geophysical, meteorological, hydrological and climatological — to understand their causes and associated risks. They found that some hazards could trigger others simultaneously or cumulatively in a cascading manner over time, causing multi-hazards and huge damage to humans, economy and infrastructure.
Natural hazards — such as floods, landslides, heatwaves and droughts — have increased globally in the last 30 years, with more than 18,000 disasters taking place during the period of 1980 to 2018, resulting in 4.8 trillion of damage. In the same period, Europe experienced nearly 3,000 disasters which caused 631 Billion of losses. Particularly, heatwaves and floods have caused significant loss of life and economic damage across Europe and other parts of the world.
2019 ScienceDaily