Multi-Hazard Research Network: Building a Predictive Framework

Improving how the UK predicts, prepares for and responds to natural hazards and infectious disease outbreaks around the world and how the political and security impact of these is managed.

Alamy: SOPA Images | A view of the swollen Bagmati river at the Chovar area the due to heavy rainfall. Floods and landslides are caused by continuous heavy downpours in Kathmandu City

Overview

Natural and health hazards are becoming increasingly interconnected, from extreme weather and climate shocks to infectious disease outbreaks. Their impacts can quickly cascade through health systems, economies and communities. Floods, heatwaves and disease outbreaks are happening more often, and increasingly at the same time and in the same places. When they hit countries already under strain, their effects can multiply rapidly.

The Multi-Hazard Research Network (MHRN) is a three-year programme led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). It brings together research, tools and rapid-response expertise to strengthen decision-making before, during and after crises.

As part of MHRN, RUSI leads a work package developing a predictive framework to identify where natural hazards, disease outbreaks, economic stress, governance failures and security dynamics intersect in fragile and politically sensitive contexts, creating threats that can overwhelm national capacity to respond. RUSI examines what happens when several crises strike the same fragile or unstable place at once, and how public trust in government shapes what follows. Drawing on these lessons, RUSI is developing a practical way to identify where multiple crises are likely to converge and have the greatest impact, giving the UK government the foresight to act ahead of a crisis rather than in response to one.

Find out more about the Network

Alamy: SOPA Images | A view of the swollen Bagmati river at the Chovar area the due to heavy rainfall. Floods and landslides are caused by continuous heavy downpours in Kathmandu City

Aims and objectives

This project aims to:

Map how natural hazards, disease outbreaks, economic stress, governance failures and security dynamics intersect and cascade in fragile, politically sensitive contexts.
Develop an indicator-based early warning tool to anticipate when hazards are synchronising and risk escalating beyond national coping capacities.
Produce a scoring and tiering model ranking countries and regions by synchronisation risk and strategic relevance, to help focus UK preparedness and response.
Examine how trust in national authorities, crisis responders and diplomats shapes and can accelerate cascading effects.