Current CEDIM-Projects
|
Rapid Earthquake Impact Modeling
|
|
 |
Earthquakes are felt every daily all around the globe. In some cases, damaging effects cannot be avoided and it is difficult, especially during bigger disasters, to estimate the actual impact. But first estimates of the earthquake intensity are important to estimate potential losses and the number of affected population. For this task, a system for disaster cartography has been developed to provide potential disaster impact maps within minutes after an event occurred. Such data can then be used e.g. for loss estimates or mitigation measures.
|
| Designing resilient complex systems and supply networks for a changing future | |
|
|
The Research Department 'Resilient and Smart Infrastructure Systems' (RESIS) investigates how complex systems and critical utility networks can be designed to be resilient in the face of multiple hazards and changing conditions. The focus is on energy, water, and other interconnected infrastructures, whose growing interconnectedness offers new opportunities for efficiency, but also increases the risk of cascading effects and system-wide disruption. This interdisciplinary research combines network theory, engineering and mathematics with modelling, simulation, data analysis and artificial intelligence, which allow hazards, system dependencies, and impacts to be considered collectively. Building on this, RESIS develops simulation-driven and AI-supported decision-support systems that identify robust and analytically sound courses of action, even in the face of high complexity and uncertainty. The objective is not to replace human decision-making, but rather to assist decision-makers in evaluating intricate options and resolving conflicts of interest. These approaches are applied to natural hazards and extreme events, climate change, nuclear and radiological emergencies, as well as security-related scenarios, and their simultaneous occurrence. The overarching goal is to embed resilience early on in transformation and planning processes, thereby laying the foundation for robust, adaptive, and practical infrastructure solutions.
|
| Capturing the critical effects of heat waves in urban public spaces | |
|
|
High summer temperatures are to be expected worldwide due to global warming. Heat and especially long periods of heat can have a negative impact on human health. The impervious surfaces and other structural influences in cities further intensify this phenomenon and lead to significantly higher temperatures in urban areas compared to the surrounding rural areas, also known as the urban heat island effect, which can be observed worldwide, especially at night. Temperature extremes and periods of heat can be recorded (a) using on-site meteorological measurements (b) thermal indices derived from these measurements and c) social research methods with regard to personal thermal perception. The aim of the project is to record all three levels of observation and their interrelationships and to draw conclusions about the stress situation during periods of heat and possible discrepancies in perception.
|
|
Managing European hail risk under climate change (HAR-CC)
|
|
 |
Severe convective storms, and large hail in particular, cause significant damage and could be affected by climate change. In collaboration with Allianz Re, this research project is investigating the impact of climate change on hail hazards and risks in parts of Europe, both in terms of past trends and the period from 2030 to 2050. The project uses high-resolution climate models, statistical methods and machine learning to analyse the relationships between hail events and meteorological conditions.
|
|
Forensic Disaster Analysis
|
|
 |
In late 2011, CEDIM embarked on a new style of disaster research known as Forensic Disaster Analysis. In the new research program CEDIM Forensic Disaster Analysis (CEDIM FDA), CEDIM researchers will analyse disasters and their impact in near real-time. The core of CEDIM’s new style of analysis is to examine disasters in an interdisciplinary manner with a focus on the complex interactions between
|
|
Loss Assessment for Earthquakes
|
|
 |
Based on the huge flow of information via internet (focussing on earthquake-report.com) and building on the largest earthquake loss database available (CATDAT) and using indicator based evaluation methods, a structured picture of losses for earthquakes will emerge. They will be compared with other events based on tectonic, regional, and socio-economic characteristics such as Human Development Index (HDI) and other relevant parameters.
|
| Cities and climate change: Urban climate risks and municipal adaptation strategies | |
|
|
The summer of 2026 offered a foretaste of the projected impacts of climate change in the coming decades. Increasing periods of heat and drought, together with more frequent heavy rainfall events, are already altering the conditions for urban development and highlighting the growing need for action by cities and municipalities. Against this background, the research agenda examines cities at the intersection of climate change, climate risks, and municipal climate adaptation. It focuses on analysing institutional and planning frameworks, identifying characteristics of urban areas relevant to climate adaptation, and investigating climate-change-related risks and stresses. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the prerequisites, challenges, and scope for action available to cities in addressing the impacts of climate change.
|
|
Early Warning of Hazardous Weather
|
|
 |
Feasible and routinely available techniques will be used to give an advance or real-time estimation of possible damage (amount of loss) before and during a winter storm event over Europe. With accurate station data (wind gusts) at representative locations weighted or unweighted storm indices will be calculated for past storm events. All this calculations eventually lead into a kind of “storm-MOS” (Model Output Statistics) that describes a storm event with reasonable certainty and precision and that allows to evolve a storm damage function. Once the storm occurs, the wind measurements at representative locations on the one hand and the model predicted wind gusts on the other hand provide the storm indices and the appropriate damage index. The data of all past and future storm events will be fed into a database and the parameters are: name, date, regions affected, model data, measurement data and loss data.
|
|
Willis Hail Hazard Assessment
|
|
 |
A stochastic model for the frequency, extent and severity of hail events has been developed for Europe, and a version covering the Australian continent is currently under development. Research at KIT is focusing on the hazard component of the risk model. European METEOSAT Second Generation (MSG) and Japanese MT-SAT satellite data is used to identify major convective storms associated with hail. The method leads to unique, spatially homogeneous event data set covering entire continents for time periods of more than a decade. Stochastic modelling of the frequency, length, width, and severity of hail events then allows to generate a large event set for hailstorms expected to occur in several thousand years. This event set can in turn be combined with insurance portfolios in order to estimate loss events for certain return periods. The aim of the project is also to improve the understanding of the relationship between the strength of convection and the formation of hail, and more generally the prevailing atmospheric conditions at the formation of hail events. Several other data sources including climate model data are considered in this context.
|
