The 'Understanding Cascading Impacts' activity brings together communities working on high-impact, large-scale extreme events and systemic risks, as well as those applying novel methodologies and tools to assess risks across multiple sectors and disciplines. This activity fosters multidisciplinary collaboration among experts in climate science, economics, agriculture, ecology, risk management, among others, to develop innovative approaches for assessing and mitigating inter- and cross-sectoral cascading impacts resulting from high-risk environmental and climate hazards.
This activity, part of the WCRP Safe Landing Climates (SLC) Lighthouse Activity, aims to accelerate knowledge gain and build a multidisciplinary community to better understand, assess, and anticipate cascading impacts in a rapidly changing world. Recent efforts within this activity include a series of contributions to the Safe Landing Climates Discussion Series on cascading impacts across different critical sectors, and the organization of the Workshop on High-Risk Cascading Shocks, held at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva in November 2024. Our ultimate goal is to identify knowledge gaps in our understanding of how cascading impacts emerge and propagate through different human and environmental systems, and to develop integrated frameworks and innovative tools that reflect the interconnected, systemic nature of these risks.
