Updating standard page text content

[matamadio]

The page text content is made of 4 elements:

1. General description of hazard level
2. Recomendations
3. Contacts
4. External resources

We have no feedback left by users about this content, but likely the recomendations are way too generic and repetitive to be useful. We can have those update, or reduced and rather point to updated external sources to get specific knowledge about hazard/location.

Before that, we could integrate a survey in the website popping up (once) when entering a hazard score page, or add it to the current feedback form e.g.:

"Do you find the provided text information useful?"

• Yes
• Partially
• No

[matamadio]

• Consider rewriting recomendations with less project-centered perspective and talk more generally about application in risk assessemnt.
• Consider link it with existing infrastructure (RDL, CCDR).
• All external resources links point to Geonode. Each one should be reviewed and replaced.
• In-text links within recomendations text (currently text urls)

[stufraser1]

Initial thinking, according to existing blocks of text content:

General description of hazard level
Must be retained - this is the headline interpretation of hazard level and linking to pointing users to related hazards. Review for minor updates

Technical Recommendations
These provide multiple separate recommendations providing brief guidance on different DRR or risk analytics considerations. One recommendation can be mapped to one or more hazards and hazard levels, E.g.

We expect these are read infrequently by users most interested in the hazard levels for reporting into projects, and are an area we may remove in the revision. The guidance is brief for each recommendation, but a lot of content on the whole, which is difficult for us to maintain, and at this point there are new and very useful WB and external resources we could point to, to provide more up to date and detailed guidance on key topics.
Definition of hazard could lean on UNDRR HIPS, which also provides details on managing the hazards/risks as well as full definition of each hazard.

Climate change recommendations
Defined per hazard per country/region, e.g.:

These should be retained, with thorough update to align with and leverage WB CCKP filtering of CC information and messaging on this. Look into API connection to bring content into TH.

Contacts
A long list of NDMO/NDMA and technical / science agencie were listed originally and mapped to a country and hazard(s). This is a very long list, diffcult for us to maintain. The proposal would be to leverage regional information e.g. UNDRR aggregations of contacts per region. We can retain the original list internally for reference, with no guarantee of contact information being kept up to date.

External resources
Need to check how and at what resolution these are defined
Linking to UNDRR HIPS would provide some relevant international content.
An expert review of key regional / hazard resources may be required to update the resources.

[stufraser1]

Climate change recommendations

We should provide an overall statement per country, sumamrising the influence of climate change on the hazard shown in ThinkHazard!

CCKP

The CCKP has no any country statements we can pull directly - though we should give a link to the CCKP country page where users see different data on that country:
e.g.

• https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/united-states
• https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/sri-lanka

CLIMATE RISK COUNTRY PROFILES CRCPs - LINKING TO

Provide user with a link to individual CLIMATE RISK COUNTRY PROFILE (PDF) listed on CCKP page: https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/index.php/country-profiles

URL is somewhat consistent: "https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/country-profiles/" & <Num_ID> & "WB_" & & "-Country Profile-WEB.pdf" (OR " Country Profile-WEB.pdf")

E.g.

• https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/country-profiles/17254-WB_Indonesia-Country%20Profile-WEB.pdf
• https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/country-profiles/15507-WB_Sri%20Lanka%20Country%20Profile-WEB.pdf

? Automate a script to check periodically for a country profile and link it in ThinkHazard ?
Best option for now is to copy all links and manually copy into CC test for ThinkHazard, and make a check on CCKP for new versions every c.3 months

CLIMATE RISK COUNTRY PROFILES - CONTENT FROM CRCPs

Per above, CCKP is not the source to pull text summary for a hazard.

CRCPs do have a section 'CLIMATE RELATED NATURAL HAZARDS' and subsection on 'KEY TRENDS', which could be replicated in full on TH (how best to do it?) or mined (using AI Agent / LLM?) for the specific paragraph relating to each hazard.

CRCP then has more detailed subsections on health, agriculture, coastal zone, etc, but these seem too detailed to put into TH front end, and to analyse for most appropriate content.

To consider:

• copy and replicate end/footnotes in text?
• If we lift one paragraph, text doesn't always make sense as standalone paragraph (e.g. 'Argentina has also been adversely affected by...')

[stufraser1]

Contacts

Proposal is to use an aggregation of contacts, maintained by others.

UNDRR

UNDRR maintains a list of Sendai Framework Focal Points and National Platforms, with one contact per country, including relevant ministry or disaster management authority.
However, the link provided (not for all records) gives a paragraph (not in all cases) about the institution but no direct contact or URL.

Connection to hazard

Consider whether this is needed - this is partly what makes our current list so complex - we have multiple contacts per country.

[stufraser1]

General description of hazard level

• Review details in current text that cite distance / area metrics that are part of the classificaiton process. These need checking against any revisions to the classification method in current development

[matamadio]

General description of hazard level

Agree to retain + minor updates.

Technical Recommendations

These are correct and useful per se, but quite repetitive and add lenght to page - user reads them the first time, then realise is the same text over and over. Also the suggestions are much targeted to project implementation perspective.
Let's revise/synthetise on content/lenght, maybe moving more text into the "More information" screen.

+1 link definition of hazard and risk management tips to UNDRR HIPS: short definition in TH + "Additional information" as external link to e.g. floods: https://www.preventionweb.net/understanding-disaster-risk/terminology/hips/mh0604

Climate change recommendations

It's unfortunate we can't get text summary of changes from CCKP - new update has even removed those short text from CCKP pages. As you noticed, equivalent text is included within the country profiles pdfs, e.g.

We can simply link to pdf but it would be nicer to have an extract of those text from pdf (partial automation is possible) in the TH page. Note howevere there are only 78 country profiles and only a minority of country profiles reflect CMIP6, most are CMIP5.

Contacts

+1 GFDRR & UNDRR aggregations of contacts per region

External resources

Tricky. I'd have a selection from GFDRR and UNDRR reports archives covering both:

• global hazard/risk docs covering both multi-hazard and hazard-specific
• country specific hazard assessments

[matamadio]

Suggest to plan a sprint for updating these in coordination with @stufraser1

Overview of tasks:

1. Hazard categories

11 hazards x 4 scores = 44 hazard score pages to review and apply minor manual revisions:

• Add short hazard definition by UNDRR
• remove reference to project implementations (e.g. Project planning decisions, project design, and construction methods must take into account the level of river flood hazard)
• brevity
• reference time period in use (to reflect the small changes in score approach)
• name of hazards (urban floods > pluvial floods)

2. Technical Recommendations

167 short + long text points linked to the hazard categories and levels. Review and no-change or minor revisions (brevity).

3. Climate Change Recommendations

11 hazards, most of them only have one common recomendation text; a few such as river flood, pluvial flood and water scarcity have country-specific text for a few countries, e.g.

Climate change impacts: In northern Argentina, medium confidence in an increase in daily precipitation, in days of intense precipitation and the number of extreme rainfall events. In southern Argentina, model projections are inconsistent in changes in rainfall. The present hazard level is expected to increase in the future due to the effects of climate change. It would be prudent to design projects in this area to be robust to river flood hazard in the long-term.

• Manually review common recomendations first;
• Manually update country-specific recomendations from CCKP country profiles.

4. Contacts

628 contacts with hazard association to be checked (automation possible) and reviewed: edited or deleted

See email exchange with Arnaud for accessing TH DB and coordinate batch updates.

[stufraser1]

Example of all-countries common statement for coastal_flood, highlighting trend, some surge specific content, and hotspots:

According to the IPCC AR6 (2021), global mean sea level will continue to rise throughout the 21st century, increasing the frequency and severity of extreme coastal water levels, including coastal flooding (high confidence).
Although projections of mean sea‑level rise have improved, confidence remains low to medium regarding regional changes in storm‑surge behaviour.
Regional variations mean some areas—such as parts of the western tropical Pacific and the Indian Ocean—are projected to experience sea‑level rise above the global average (high confidence).
Where available, regional or local sea‑level observations and projections should be used to refine risk assessments, as impacts vary significantly by location.
Projects in low‑lying coastal zones, including deltas and small island states, should therefore be designed to remain resilient to higher sea levels and more frequent extreme coastal events.

[stufraser1]

And for Volcanic:

According to IPCC AR6 (2021), overall, climate change is not expected to generate new volcanic activity where none exists, but it may alter the timing, style, and secondary impacts of eruptions in certain regions. These effects are highly location‑dependent and remain an emerging area of research (medium to low confidence).
Current scientific evidence indicates that climate change can influence volcanic systems indirectly through changes in ice mass, surface water distribution, and atmospheric conditions. Glacial retreat and ice‑sheet loss reduce pressure on the Earth’s crust, which can modify magmatic processes and may increase volcanic activity in some glaciated regions over long timescales (medium confidence).
Increasing heavy rainfall and shifts in hydrology may also affect volcanic hazards by destabilising slopes, altering hydrothermal systems, and increasing the likelihood of lahars or phreatic explosions (medium confidence).
Changes in atmospheric circulation and background climate conditions can influence eruption plume behaviour and ash dispersion, potentially modifying the geographic extent of ashfall impacts (low to medium confidence).

[stufraser1]

Cyclones:

According to the IPCC AR6 (2021), the proportion of intense tropical cyclones and the peak wind speeds of the strongest storms are projected to increase as global warming continues (high confidence).
Rainfall rates associated with tropical cyclones are also expected to increase due to higher atmospheric moisture in a warmer climate (medium to high confidence).
Global tropical cyclone frequency is projected to decrease or remain approximately unchanged (medium confidence), although the frequency of very intense storms is likely to rise in several ocean basins.
These trends are better understood and assessed with higher confidence in some regions—particularly the Western North Pacific and the North Atlantic—where observational records and model agreement are strongest.
Sea‑level rise will further exacerbate tropical‑cyclone coastal impacts by increasing storm‑induced inundation levels, even if storm characteristics remain unchanged (very likely).
In the long term, hazard levels in areas currently affected by tropical cyclones may increase due to more intense storms, higher rainfall rates, and greater coastal flooding. Projects located in cyclone‑prone regions should therefore be designed to remain resilient to future increases in cyclone hazard under projected climate change.

[stufraser1]

Earthquake:

Current IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) findings do not identify a direct, globally significant link between anthropogenic climate change and increased earthquake activity. However, AR6 reports continued ice‐mass loss and accelerated deglaciation in high‑latitude and glaciated regions, processes that can alter crustal loading and contribute to glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). In theory, such unloading can modify crustal stress fields, which may influence seismicity on geological timescales, but AR6 does not assess this mechanism as a current or emerging climate‑related hazard. Earthquake risk therefore remains dominated by tectonic processes, with climate‑related contributions considered indirect and not assessed as significant within AR6.