Weather and Climate-Induced Multi-Hazard Futures: Forecast, Communication, and Preparedness for Society

Weather- and climate-induced extremes are increasingly driving compounding and cascading hazards, affecting lives, livelihoods, infrastructure, and ecosystems across all regions of the world. Society now faces a deeply interconnected multi-hazard future in which different types of events—such as heatwaves, floods, storms, landslides, droughts, and coastal surges—interact across space and time, amplifying risks and producing systemic, cross-sectoral impacts for people and critical systems. At the same time, decision makers at all levels are being asked to respond more quickly and more fairly while navigating limited capacities, uneven access to information, and deep uncertainty, from real-time emergency operations to long-term adaptation and investment planning.

This Collection focuses on the social dimensions of these evolving multi-hazard risks in a changing climate—how weather and climate information is produced, translated, communicated, and acted upon within diverse decision contexts. It emphasizes the need to understand not only the physical characteristics of hazards and extremes, but also how warning chains function, how institutions and governance arrangements enable or constrain action, and how inequalities and vulnerabilities shape who benefits from available services. A central ambition is to advance people-centered, locally grounded early warning and preparedness that are attentive to justice, ethics, and inclusion, with a particular focus on equitable access to information, capabilities, and decision-making.

We particularly encourage contributions that examine how multi-hazard forecasts and projections can be turned into usable, context-specific information for communities, practitioners, and policymakers. This includes research on impact-based forecasting, anticipatory action, and risk-informed planning, as well as work that critically assesses successes, failures, and unintended consequences in real-world applications. Studies that explore how different knowledge systems—scientific, Indigenous, and local—can be combined to improve understanding and preparedness for multi-hazard futures are also welcome, especially where such collaborations strengthen agency, autonomy, and locally-led decision-making.

We seek interdisciplinary submissions spanning the full range of natural hazards, including floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, severe storms, heatwaves, landslides, debris flows, coastal and compound events, avalanches, and space weather, and explicitly addressing their societal implications. Contributions that link short-term weather information with seasonal and climate-scale information, and that explore decision making across multiple timescales, are of particular interest, including studies that bridge scientific forecasting with institutional, policy, and community response mechanisms.

We welcome Original Research articles, Reviews, Perspectives, and Comments that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Multi-hazard, compounding and cascading weather- and climate-related risks and their societal consequences
• Co-production, co-design, and evaluation of weather, climate, and impact-based services with user communities
• Social vulnerability, inequality, justice, and ethics in early warning systems, evacuation, and preparedness
• Governance, institutions, and policy processes shaping the design, financing, and implementation of weather and climate services
• Case studies and comparative analyses of warning chains and decision-making under uncertainty, including lessons from recent extreme events
• Community-led, Indigenous, and local knowledge systems in hazard monitoring, communication, and preparedness