The 2025 Hazard Information Profiles, published by UNDRR and ISC, offer a comprehensive look at how we understand and manage hazards. For anyone working in disaster risk reduction, education, or community planning, this reference is a valuable tool. Here’s a simplified overview of what it covers.

 What Are the Hazard Information Profiles?

The 2025 HIPs is an authoritative reference that describes hazard types, definitions, impacts, risk drivers, and management strategies. It’s designed to support disaster risk reduction efforts worldwide.

 Key Terms to Know

– Hazard profile: A structured entry that defines a specific hazard, its drivers, impacts, and risk management.

– Hazard cluster: A grouping of related hazards, such as meteorological, hydrological, or biological.

– Multi-hazard context: The way hazards interact, co-occur, or amplify one another across space and time.

– Early warning system: A system that detects, forecasts, and communicates hazard threats to enable timely action.

– Disaster risk reduction: Policies and actions aimed at preventing new risks and reducing existing disaster risk.

– Sendai Framework: The 2015–2030 global agreement guiding disaster risk reduction targets and priorities.

– Hazard driver: A condition or process that causes, triggers, or intensifies a hazard.

– Exposure: The people, assets, or systems located in areas that could be affected by a hazard.

– Vulnerability: The conditions that increase the susceptibility of people or systems to hazard impacts.

– Risk management: Measures taken to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from hazards.

 The Big Picture: Main Ideas

Hazards are organized into eight broad types: meteorological and hydrological, extraterrestrial, geological, environmental, chemical, biological, technological, and societal. Each profile gives scientific context, identifies drivers and impacts, and outlines monitoring and risk management.

Hazards rarely occur in isolation. The profiles consistently emphasize multi-hazard interactions and cascading effects. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 is the common international framework referenced across all hazard types.

Risk management depends on detection, early warning, preparedness, regulation, and cross-sectoral coordination. Human activity, climate change, urbanization, and environmental degradation amplify many hazards and their consequences. Vulnerable populations, low-income countries, and fragile settings face disproportionately higher impacts. Authoritative monitoring and data-sharing are essential for forecasting, early warning, and effective response.

 Facts That Might Surprise You

– Downburst wind speeds can reach up to 67 metres per second—roughly 240 kilometres per hour.

– Microbursts affect areas less than 4 kilometres in diameter, while macrobursts exceed 4 kilometres.

– Lightning strikes the Earth more than 8 million times per day.

– A typical lightning flash carries about 300 million volts and peak currents near 30,000 amperes.

– The lightning channel can reach temperatures up to 30,000°C.

– Thunderstorm asthma is a documented global phenomenon with 26 known events reported worldwide.

– The 1985 Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crash killed 137 people after encountering a microburst.

– The 1974 Martinair Flight 138 crash killed 191 people and was linked to wind shear and downburst conditions.

– Dust and sandstorm visibility thresholds classify light, moderate, and heavy events using visibility and wind gust criteria.

– Fog is defined as visibility below 1 kilometre by international agreement, though public forecasts often use 180 metres.

– Haze particles are dry, extremely small, and can reduce visibility while giving the air an opalescent appearance.

– The WHO recommends annual average PM2.5 concentrations not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic metre.

– Derechos must extend more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometres) with gusts of at least 58 miles per hour (about 93 kilometres per hour).

– Tropical cyclone central pressure can fall below 900 hPa in some cases.

– The 2025 HIPs update includes hundreds of specific hazard profiles across eight major hazard types.

 What the Experts Recommend

– Use the hazard profiles as a reference for defining and classifying hazards in risk assessments and educational materials.

– Apply the Sendai Framework as the guiding international framework for disaster risk reduction planning.

– Incorporate multi-hazard thinking rather than treating hazards as isolated events.

– Strengthen early warning systems with authoritative monitoring, forecasting, and timely communication.

– Prioritize vulnerable populations and low-resource settings in preparedness and response planning.

– Invest in cross-sectoral coordination among meteorological, health, environmental, and disaster management agencies.

– Treat climate change, urbanization, and environmental degradation as risk amplifiers requiring integrated mitigation.

– Use evidence-based thresholds and metrics to guide alerts, warnings, and protective actions.

– Develop hazard-specific risk management measures while maintaining a broader all-hazards approach.

– Encourage data sharing and international cooperation for transboundary and cascading hazards.

 Questions to Spark Discussion

Warm-up questions:

– When you hear the word “hazard,” what kinds of events come to mind, and how would you decide which ones matter most?

– Why do you think one hazard can sometimes make another hazard worse or more likely?

– If you had to warn a community about an approaching hazard, what information would they need most?

Deeper discussion questions:

– Why does the document organize hazards into major types, and what are the strengths and limitations of that system?

– How does the idea of a “multi-hazard context” change the way we prepare for disasters?

– Which hazard profiles in the document seem most relevant to your region, and why?

– How should authorities balance scientific uncertainty with the need to issue early warnings?

– What role should vulnerable populations play in designing disaster risk reduction strategies?

– How do human activities such as urbanization or deforestation turn natural events into disasters?

– In what ways could climate change alter the frequency, intensity, or location of the hazards described?

– Why is international cooperation essential for hazards that cross borders, such as storms, floods, or disease outbreaks?

– How can schools and educators use hazard information profiles to build student understanding of risk?

– What are the biggest barriers to implementing the risk management recommendations across different countries?

Understanding these profiles is a step toward building more resilient communities. How is your organization using hazard information to prepare for the unexpected?