ESPON-TITAN: territorial patterns of natural hazards in Europe

Disaster risk management and risk assessment are essential to protect human lives, property, social and economic assets, and the environment. With respect to risks caused by natural hazards, it is important to understand–in addition to vulnerability and exposure–the nature, magnitude, extent and reoccurrence of natural hazards. Every hazard mapping effort needs to identify the precise scope and its further use. The aim of cross-regional hazard mapping is to provide a picture of the territorial patterns of natural hazards. From a European perspective, such overviews, combined with information about territorial vulnerability and damage potential, support the development of EU policies and probably the allocation of funds, as they are based on damage and risk patterns from a European perspective. This article presents hazard maps for five individual natural hazards and one aggregated hazard map produced to support the development of EU policies and EU funding for research and regional development. The maps cover riverine floods, windstorms, earthquakes, droughts and landslides. In addition, the aggregated hazard map presents the relative importance of all five natural hazards across European regions. The hazards are displayed at NUTS3 regional level (except for droughts). All maps of individual hazards are based on available datasets with a as comprehensive as possible coverage of Europe.