Digital Multi-Hazard Risk Modelling and Life-Cycle Assessment for Next-Generation Resilient and Sustainable Built Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Communities and infrastructure systems worldwide are increasingly exposed to multiple and interacting nature-based hazards, such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, fires and windstorms, whose combined or sequential effects can generate cascading and compound events. Understanding and modelling these complex, multi-hazard interactions are essential for capturing the evolving patterns of vulnerability, exposure and resilience of the built environment. These challenges are further intensified by climate change, which alters the frequency and severity of certain hazards and influences the long-term performance, ageing and degradation of materials and infrastructure systems.

This Special Issue aims to advance research at the interface of multi-hazard risk assessment, life-cycle performance, and sustainable engineering design. It welcomes studies that integrate probabilistic and physics-based simulations, life-cycle assessments (LCAs), and data-driven or AI-enabled methodologies to quantify and mitigate risks associated with nature-based hazards, while also accounting for the broader impacts of climate change on hazard behaviour, vulnerability and life-cycle performance. Emphasis is placed on developing frameworks and tools that support risk-informed, sustainability-driven and climate-resilient decision-making across engineering, urban planning and policy domains.

Topics of Interest

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Integrated performance-based and reliability-based modelling for multi-hazard and multi-risk assessment
• Cascading and compound hazard interactions (e.g., earthquake–fire, earthquake–landslide, flood–storm)
• Probabilistic, scenario-based and hybrid hazard-modelling approaches
• Vulnerability and fragility assessment of structures under single or multiple hazards
• Life-cycle assessment (LCA), life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) and multi-criteria sustainability optimisation of structures
• Environmental impacts of post-disaster repair, retrofit and reconstruction (embodied carbon, debris management, repair-related emissions)
• Structural control and energy-dissipation systems for enhanced multi-hazard resilience
• Sustainable, low-carbon and eco-efficient cementitious materials for hazard-resilient construction
• Sustainable and low-carbon materials for multi-hazard-resilient construction (e.g., FRP, TRM, SFRC, recycled aggregates)
• AI, machine learning and surrogate modelling for multi-hazard prediction and life-cycle sustainability analysis
• Climate-change impacts on hazard frequency, exposure, degradation and long-term structural performance
• Socio-economic and environmental indicators for risk governance, resilience planning and policy development
• Sustainability-oriented digital modelling workflows for multi-hazard assessment of material behaviour and structural performance

Contributed papers for this Special Issue must be submitted to Applied Sciences via the MDPI online submission system. Please consult the journal’s Author Guidelines before submission.

Deadline for manuscript submission: June 30, 2027 (suggested)

Dr. Shaghayegh Karimzadeh
Dr. Omid Hassanshahi
Dr. Amirhossein Mohammadi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• multi-hazard risk assessment
• cascading and compound hazard processes
• probabilistic and scenario-based modelling
• digital simulation and parametric modelling
• vulnerability and fragility analysis
• AI, machine learning and surrogate modelling
• structural reliability
• climate-change impacts on hazards
• climate-resilient design
• low-carbon and sustainable construction materials
• carbon neutrality / low-carbon design
• life-cycle assessment (LCA)
• life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA)
• environmental impacts of earthquake damage
• digital twins and computational hazard modelling
• sustainable and resilient infrastructure
• AI and data-driven methods in hazard and risk analysis