Congratulations to Laura Niggli on her PhD defense: Tackling the Complexity of Climate Risks

• Post by: Randy Muñoz
• May 22, 2025
• Comments off

The EClim group congratulates Laura Niggli on the successful defense of her PhD thesis titled:
“Challenges and opportunities for the management of complex climate risks.”

Supervised by EClim member Christian Huggel, Laura’s work breaks new ground by addressing an unusually wide range of climate-related risks—from heatwaves and droughts to glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs)—and analyzing how these hazards cascade across sectors and systems.

Key findings:

• The compounding effects of climate hazards can exceed the sum of individual impacts, in some cases reaching more than 5% of national GDP.
• Cross-sectoral planning is essential for managing risks in interconnected systems.
• Local ownership, cultural context, and knowledge are vital for effective adaptation.
• The research calls for integrated, interdisciplinary, and inclusive approaches to manage unprecedented future risks.

Laura’s publications contribute to a more holistic understanding of cascading climate risks and the need for systemic resilience strategies in adaptation planning.

Publications:

• Plos Climate (2023)
• Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science
• EGUsphere (preprint 2025)

🔗 Read the full post by Christian Huggel: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/christian-huggel-433671258_towards-improved-understanding-of-cascading-activity-7330141751954870272-fWhF