Prof Dr Cees van Westen is professor multi-hazard risk dynamics at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Centre for Disaster Resilience (CSR) of the University of Twente, the Netherlands. He has carried out research on different hazard and risk related aspects: landslide hazard and risk, volcanic hazard and risk, and earthquake-induced hazards in different regions (e.g. European Alps, Central America, South America, Caribbean, Caucasus, Central Asia, Himalayas, China, India, Indonesia). He worked on national scale multi-hazard risk assessment projects in Central America, Caribbean, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Pakistan. His current research interest is to develop methods for the analysis of changing multi-hazard risk. These changes can be abrupt, e.g. after major disasters (e.g. earthquakes, tropical storms, volcanic eruptions), or gradual (e.g. analysing how future scenarios of climate change, land use change and population change have an impact on risk) or as decision support tool for the planning of risk reduction measures. He is coordinator of the EU HORIZON Europe Research project PARATUS (https://www.paratus-project.eu/ ) on Promoting disaster preparedness and resilience by co-developing stakeholder support tools for managing the systemic risk of compounding disasters.
