Afghanistan multi-hazard risk assessment

This report provides a comprehensive multi-hazard risk assessment at the national level, including in-depth assessments for selected geographic areas. The analysis covers flood, flash flood, drought, earthquake, snow avalanche, and landslide hazards, as well as detailed asset and exposure modelling. This publication describes the applied methods and main results of the assessment.

Chapter 1 provides a risk analysis for both fluvial floods and flash floods. The fluvial flood modeling framework consists of a hydrological analysis, a hydrodynamic analysis, and a flood impact analysis. The flash floods risk analysis is based on susceptibility indicators, based on topographic and land use maps.

Chapter 2 is devoted to drought risk analysis based on a distributed rainfall-runoff model and a water-balance model.

Chapter 3 analyzes the landslide risk. Landslide susceptibility hazard maps are obtained from historical inventories of past events combined with the analysis of slope angle, bedrock lithology, geomorphological, morphometric, geological, geotechnical, hydrogeological, and land use factors.

Chapter 4 includes an assessment of snow avalanche risk based on historical avalanche data and numerical modeling of the avalanche runout potential and dynamics.

Chapter 5 focuses on the risk of ground shaking caused by seismic activity. The seismic risk analysis is based on historic earthquake data, a model for zones and faults, and numerical modeling combining hazard, exposure, and vulnerability to create the risk assessment.

This report is based on a national level risk assessment conducted by an international consortium, using data from national and international sources. It was prepared in response to a growing demand from the Government of Afghanistan to better understand and integrate risk information in policy planning and investments across various economic sectors.