Climate extremes, as well as natural and man-made hazards, often affect people directly, but sometimes exacerbate their impact by affecting urban environments and essential infrastructure services, including water, food, health, energy, information, security, and cultural identity.
Cities are melting pots of cultures and innovations, but also hotspots of disaster exposure and impact chains that connect cities to other urban and rural areas.
The topics of vulnerability research, as well as critical infrastructure, have driven the development of methodologies to identify and prioritise needs and capacities in dealing with risks, disasters, or transformations, including climate change-driven processes of adaptation and resilience.
Meet the team!
Alexander Fekete
Alexander Fekete is Professor of Risk and Crisis Management at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. He works in the field of security research on natural hazards such as floods, earthquakes or landslides. In particular, his research focuses on their impact on affected persons, but also on power and supply chain failures. He has gained work experience at universities, the United Nations and the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance.
Mark Pelling
Professor in Risk and Disaster Reduction, Institute of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London.
Working Group Updates
Recent webinars
Integrating critical infrastructure and social vulnerability into spatial risk
Date: 23 September 2024
Alexander Fekete (TH Koeln), Hannes Taubenböck (DLR), Christian Geiß, Peter Priesmeier (TH Koeln)
Societal resilience and infrastructure – who is forgotten in post-disaster recovery?
Date: 17 October 2025
Alexander Fekete, Mark Pelling, Dr. Atif Bilal Aslam, Dr. Milad Zamanifa