WorldRiskReport – Focus: Multiple Crises

The WorldRiskReport evaluates global disaster risk for 193 countries, covering all UN member states and more than 99% of the world’s population.

Key Findings

The highest-risk regions remain concentrated in the Americas and Asia, home to eight of the ten countries with the highest disaster risk. Over time, however, these hotspots are expected to shift toward countries that are both highly climate-sensitive and socially vulnerable.

The top 10 list of countries most at risk has changed slightly, with Colombia now recording the highest disaster risk in the Americas, replacing Mexico. China has dropped out of the group, while Pakistan has entered the top ten.

China’s fall from the highest-risk group to a lower ranking illustrates that even in highly exposed environments, reducing vulnerability can significantly lower overall risk. The country remains the most exposed in the world, followed by Mexico, Japan, and the Philippines.

The Central African Republic is currently identified as the most vulnerable country, replacing Somalia. Afghanistan has rejoined the list of the ten most vulnerable nations, meaning this group no longer consists exclusively of African states.

Germany improved slightly in its ranking, now positioned mid-table with a moderate risk level.

The report highlights that many national risk profiles are influenced not only by natural hazards and climate change, but also by conflicts and political instability. A special analysis using new conflict exposure data from ACLED and WorldPop indicates that Central and North Africa, South and Central America, and South Asia are particularly affected by overlapping crises. Countries such as Colombia, Pakistan, and Somalia show high risk levels combined with significant conflict exposure.

Integrating conflict, epidemic, and other non-natural threats into disaster risk assessments allows for more comprehensive evaluations, though this requires methodological adjustments and refined theoretical frameworks.

Focus: Multiple Crises

Crises are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected. Extreme weather events, armed conflicts, and pandemics often occur simultaneously, amplifying each other’s effects. Global challenges such as climate change, population growth, and political polarization intensify these overlapping risks.

Multiple crises manifest in different ways and at various scales — individual, regional, and global — demanding holistic and forward-looking approaches to anticipate, manage, and mitigate their consequences.

The global water crisis illustrates how climate change impacts people, agriculture, and ecosystems. Rising incidents of heavy rainfall, storms, floods, droughts, and crop failures are undermining food security, with cascading effects including malnutrition, health crises, regional conflicts, and forced displacement.

Traditional risk analysis methods often focus on isolated hazards, limiting their effectiveness in assessing compound risks. New analytical approaches now seek to capture the interactions between multiple hazards and the multidimensional nature of vulnerability.

However, translating these complex assessments into practical humanitarian action remains challenging. Stronger cooperation between data scientists and humanitarian practitioners is essential to ensure that analytical findings inform real-world resilience strategies.

Disasters caused by natural events can also trigger or exacerbate conflicts, especially in regions already affected by poverty, ethnic exclusion, political violence, or weak governance. Yet in some cases, disasters may temporarily reduce conflict risks by depleting resources or prompting international attention that encourages non-violent solutions.