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Sustainable Management of Multi-Hazard Natural Disasters and Industrial Accidents

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Health, Well-Being and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 192

Special Issue Editors

Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
Interests: risk analysis; assessment; and management in multi-hazard chemical accidents including fires; explosions; toxic releases
State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS), University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
Interests: multi-hazard risk; NATECH events; large-scale fire; risk management

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Guest Editor
School of Safety Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Interests: risk assessment; process safety; resilience of critical infrastructures; domino effect
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Guest Editor
Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Uji, Japan
Interests: environmental engineering; chemical engineering; safety engineering; NATECH events

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change, human health, industry, and infrastructure have been listed as important elements in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In recent years, the increasing impacts of climate change and rapid urbanization have added new layers of complexity to multi-hazard risks, including natural disasters and industrial accidents. Increasingly frequent and intensive emergencies, including heavy rain, hurricanes/typhoons, heatwaves, and severe convection weather, have increased the likelihood and randomness of multi-hazard scenarios, such as NATECH (natural hazard-triggered technological accidents) events and domino accidents. The emerging multi-hazard risks pose a threat to human health, industrial development, and infrastructure management in urban and rural areas. Also, the advent of new technologies such as hydrogen energy, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) has transformed urban operations and infrastructure management. These innovations also introduce emerging hazards such as hydrogen explosions, automatic system failures, and cybersecurity threats.

Recently, the multi-hazard risks in urban and rural areas have caught the attention of administrators and sparked research interest from scholars worldwide. This Special Issue aims to organize related publications, showing the growing trend of multi-hazard research, and contributing to the sustainable development goals. This Special Issue calls for research articles and review articles focused on the modeling and management of multi-hazard disasters and accidents, as well as other topics surrounding the risk reduction and emergency management.

Dr. Zhichao He
Dr. Meng Lan
Dr. Yiping Bai
Prof. Dr. Ana María Cruz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

Keywords

  • multi-hazard risk
  • NATECH event
  • domino effect
  • risk assessment
  • accident prevention
  • disaster reduction
  • emergency management
  • public safety
  • infrastructure resilience
  • urban sustainability

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

24 pages, 1352 KiB  
Article
Gas Extraction and Earthquakes in the Netherlands: Drawing Lessons from the Response to Ongoing Social Conflict and Tensions
by Nienke Busscher and Ena Vojvodić
Sustainability 2025, 17(17), 7612; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17177612 (registering DOI) - 23 Aug 2025
Abstract
Since the onset of gas extraction in Groningen province, the Netherlands, more than 1700 earthquakes have taken place. This has resulted in damage to properties and safety issues for almost 28,000 buildings. As a result, an extensive reinforcement and damage repair operation started, [...] Read more.
Since the onset of gas extraction in Groningen province, the Netherlands, more than 1700 earthquakes have taken place. This has resulted in damage to properties and safety issues for almost 28,000 buildings. As a result, an extensive reinforcement and damage repair operation started, due to which, many residents were temporarily relocated. Although the need for compensation and restoration was recognized from 2012, recent years are characterized by unclear and shifting responsibilities, bureaucratic complexities, and evolving compensation standards, leading to disparity and a further escalation of social impacts. This paper examines developments in the case from 2015 onwards, when the last overview article on this case was published. We observe that even after a decade of compensation efforts, many residents experience loss of trust in the government and endure chronic stress that impacts their well-being, family dynamics, and overall quality of life. We analyze the government-led mitigation and compensation system that in essence fails to address the grievances of local people. Even after broad recognition of the flawed system, the parliament did not fundamentally change it. In nine lessons, we underscore the global imperative for robust social impact assessments, ongoing social monitoring, and well-coordinated compensation frameworks. This is not only crucial to address socio-ecological distress, but also to build more accountable and sustainable institutional responses to future extraction endeavors. Full article
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