a） In collaboration with other themes, build capacity to define, conduct, review and communicate vulnerability and risk research and applications  

  Foster/nurture sustained relationships with practitioners and researchers that have experience working with (or within) sectors and organizations that are sensitive to the selected hazards (e.g., health, transportation)  

  Hold a series of surveys and small workshops to solicit contributions to a larger white paper (i.e., chapters, case studies, decision problems); inventory of on-going vulnerability and risk research; and multinational research 

  proposal(s). The meetings would focus on specific hazards/risks and sensitive sectors and target social and interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners involved in the production and delivery of weather services and management of risk. 

  Propose, organize and participate in special themed sessions at international meetings in the impact/vulnerability/risk community and social or interdisciplinary science meetings. 

Publish the white paper as a special issue of an interdisciplinary journal with a shorter update/note to a meteorological-oriented journal, e.g. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). 

b） Develop an inventory of weather-related risk and impact models; establish a research database of impact, vulnerability, and risk information to track how things change with time through the project; develop an analytical framework to categorize and assess the state of risk & impact modelling and its benefits for each hazard and sector/outcome. 

  Through literature review and interviews with representatives from key operational forecasting and research centres, engaging private sector as a priority, including existing databases of vulnerability to extreme events, and adding potential near-term effects of climate change (changing hazards, exposure, vulnerability) 

  Identify go-to people in each hazard to assist researchers. Note some impact & vulnerability models and data are proprietary and there will be sensitivities.  Identify issues with impacts that are slow to appear or chronic. 

  Prepare and publish a white paper on the distinctions between those aspects of the selected hazards to which human impacts are highly sensitive and those that have little sensitivity, and the relevance of these results to current and potential prediction capabilities so as to highlight priority areas for hazard prediction research. 

  Contribute findings to the white paper in a) with emphasis on identifying knowledge gaps, data issues, novel methodological practice, appropriate case studies, treatment of diversity in people/culture/countries, comparison across hazards. 

c) Lead the cross-cutting activity to describe an operational forecasting production structure that includes socio-economic impact models and products and to promote it through training events, conferences and publications. 

d) In collaboration with the Communication and Evaluation themes, catalogue post-event case-study evaluations, identifying similarities and differences, sources of hazard information, usage of advice in decision making and good practice in evaluation 

e) Contribute to the cross-cutting activity to develop an international collaborative activity to collect social media, volunteer and other professional data to construct and validate impact models. 

f) Lead the cross-cutting activity to prepare a catalogue of the principal variables that characterise information requirements for stakeholder decision making, including the most significant thresholds, and the nature of the impact response.  

g) Develop capability to model dynamic vulnerability (e.g. flows of traffic, weekend/holiday, demographics, marginal populations, Lake Victoria fisher exposure, etc.) 

   Hold workshops on approaches to modelling vulnerability, the benefits of dynamic vs static modelling, and the availability of data. 

  In collaboration with the climate change adaptation community. 

  Include environmental (e.g., soil dryness/wetness, tree leafout), social (e.g., mass events/gatherings), other secondary effects; integration of models/representations of dynamic vulnerability (compatibility issues, etc.) 

  Compare across hazards  

  Start with a narrow scope, then broaden