To advance national understanding of how natural hazards interact in complex ways in the country, the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute (UPRI) and the Durham University Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) hosted an Expert Judgement Workshop on Multi-Hazard Interrelations in the Philippines on June 25, 2025, at Ardenhills Suites, Quezon City.
The one-day workshop brought together over 20 experts from academic institutions, government agencies, civil society organizations, and scientific organizations to discuss how multi-hazard scenarios can emerge in the Philippine context. It also sought to explore and identify pathways for integrating multi-hazard thinking into science, planning, and policy.
Participants included notable experts in the study of earthquakes, floods, landslides, volcanoes, drought, tropical cyclones, and other hazard types. Practitioners from civil society and non-governmental organizations also joined, drawing on their experience in disaster risk reduction and resilience-building.
Through plenary discussions, interactive polling, and breakout group sessions, the workshop addressed three core questions: what single and multi-hazard types are likely to influence the Philippines; what existing resources or datasets could support better understanding of multi-hazard interrelationships; and what opportunities and challenges exist in integrating a multi-hazard lens into practice and policy?
To guide the participants in answering these core questions, the workshop adopted the two key concepts of the UNDRR’s (2017) definition of a multi-hazard: the selection of multiple major hazards and the specific contexts where hazardous events may occur simultaneously, cascadingly, or cumulatively over time—with particular attention to their interrelated effects.
“Most of the time, we think of single hazards, and we don’t connect it. We have to start trying to visualize or imagine how they work together, how they are related to each other, and the impacts they generate that we need to prepare for,” said Dr. Alfredo Mahar Lagmay, Executive Director of UPRI. “By combining your expert insights with historical data and emerging frameworks, we hope to capture a more nuanced picture of how multi-hazard interrelations actually manifest in our country.”
The event was organized as part of the PhD research of Richard Ybañez, under the supervision of Dr. Lagmay (UPRI) and Dr. Bruce Malamud (Director, DU IHRR) and supported by ethical clearance from the UP Visayas Research Ethics Board.
Participants also examined recent global research on hazard interrelationships, including case studies from Guatemala, Nairobi, and Istanbul, as well as the latest UNDRR–ISC Hazard Information Profiles (2025).
Insights and synthesized findings from the workshop will inform the ongoing development of a Philippine multi-hazard interrelationships framework that can be used by academics, research institutes, and DRR practitioners in understanding, anticipating, ang mitigating the effects of multi-hazard events in the Philippines.