the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 25 Nov 2025
Review article: Multi-Hazards and Household Preparedness Planning: Evidence, Gaps and Opportunities
Abstract. This paper presents a systematic analysis of peer-reviewed evidence on household preparedness and multi-hazard interrelationships, identifying what constitutes an effective preparedness plan and assessing how far current research integrates multi-hazard thinking. A systematic search of literature published since 2006 yielded 138 relevant studies, assessed by geographical focus, methodological approach, alignment with best practice, and engagement with multi-hazard perspectives. Fifty papers underwent in-depth qualitative analysis. Findings reveal a persistent Global North and quantitative bias in the evidence base: only 18 % of case studies originate from low- and middle-income countries, and 66 % employ solely quantitative methods. Current understandings of preparedness are therefore narrow, often excluding from low-resource contexts. From the in-depth analysis, we identify key elements of effective household preparedness planning in low-income settings, including shared assets and gender norms. We further show that 45 % of studies focus on a single hazard, with limited attention to hazard interrelationships; 62 % make no explicit reference to how multiple hazards interact to shape preparedness strategies. We conclude with recommendations for future household preparedness research that (a) adopts a broader definition of the term ‘household’, (b) considers gender, (c) considers the barriers to adoption of preparedness plans, (d) embraces qualitative and mixed-methods approaches and (e) considers multi-hazard interactions between hazards and preparedness strategies. The paper advances understanding of the limited maturity of multi-hazard preparedness research and highlights the need for evidence that links household-level practice with Priority 4 of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–30 and the mid-term call for inclusive, multi-hazard risk governance.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-5704', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Dec 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-5704', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Jan 2026
The article addresses the very promising and underexplored topic of multi-hazard preparedness, with a unique focus on household-level preparedness. For this reason, I believe it can make a significant contribution to the DRR field and initiate a fruitful discussion on how to enhance household preparedness against the increasingly frequent multi-hazard disaster risk scenarios they are exposed to, due to climate change and interactions with other anthropogenic activities and pressures.
Before publication, I recommend undergoing a major revision to better clarify certain methodological aspects and enhance the presentation of the results.
Here are my suggestions for the authors:
- As the authors mentioned in lines 539-540, one of the limitations of this work is the unique focus on peer-reviewed literature. I think this is a huge limitation, given the topic of the review. Indeed, a lot of advancements in disaster risk preparedness, even at the household level, are promoted by civil protection and emergency management agencies, and therefore documented in technical reports and grey literature in general. For this reason, I think that the authors should set up the expectations of the readers from the beginning, providing a title that better reflects this specific angle of analysis. As a suggestion to start reflecting on: “Multi-hazards and household preparedness planning conceptualisation in academic literature.”
- The rationale for including Table 2 in the manuscript is unclear. The different types of hazard interrelationships presented are neither used in the subsequent literature analysis nor theoretically examined in terms of how distinct mechanisms should be accounted for in household preparedness planning practices. I suggest either removing it or including some additional reflections to justify its presence.
- In Table 3, it would be beneficial to include the references associated with each identified preparedness approach, if they are derived from literature. If not, the authors should explicitly explain how they identified them.
- Lines 140-143: Why is the type of preparedness approach (see Table 3) not proposed as an aspect of the investigation of the literature? What does “the success of the household preparedness plan” (element III in the list) mean? I invite the authors to better explain this part of the methodology.
- Lines 164-167: It is not clear how the authors passed from 587 articles (line 164) to 138 papers (line 165). I invite them to explain more in detail. Moreover, I suggest also discussing here the choice of starting from 2006. It is implicitly reported in the search string at line 150, but never explicitly reported or justified.
- Line 214: What does “challenge of the principle” mean? I invite the author to explain it more explicitly.
- At lines 307–311, the authors state that Sutton and Tierney’s framework “offered limited analytical traction in positioning the preparedness literature within a multi-hazard context” and therefore motivated a further analysis presented in Section 5.3. However, given that one of the main objectives and added values of this study is the analysis of the multi-hazard perspective in preparedness plans, it is unclear why the authors did not incorporate this aspect directly into the methodological framework from the outset. Specifically, it would seem more coherent to replace the original 11th criterion of the Sutton and Tierney framework with an ad-hoc multi-hazard indicator capable of classifying the type of multi-hazard approach adopted (those outlined in Table 3), rather than addressing this limitation only through a subsequent, separate analysis.
- Moreover, restricting the analysis to the identification of Sutton and Tierney’s principles in the literature may introduce an initial bias, as it could limit the ability to identify other emerging or alternative themes within the analysed body of literature. This potential limitation of the approach should therefore be explicitly acknowledged and discussed in the limitations section.
- Figure 6: What does the “Resource Intensity” in the y-axis measure? I invite the authors to explain this figure in detail. Moreover, it is not reported anywhere how many papers were identified in each of these categories of hazard specificities. I think this could be very useful information to report.
- Finally, it would be very useful, if not essential for transparency and reproducibility in this type of study, to provide the full results of the literature review as supplementary material. Sharing this additional material would allow readers to better assess the robustness of the analysis and facilitate future research building on this work.
Other minor comments:
- Figures 3 and 5 seem low quality and stretched.
- In Figure 4, it is not necessary to include a table with the correspondence between the principles and the numbers, since they are already listed and numbered in Table
- Line 150: There is a missing closing quotation mark after 'Plan'
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5704-RC2
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Also see attached file
Review Article: Multi-Hazards and Household Preparedness Planning: Evidence, Gaps and Opportunities
Reviewer comments:
General
In the manuscript “Multi-Hazards and Household Preparedness Planning: Evidence, Gaps and Opportunities” the authors perform a literature review to assess the extent to which multi-hazard thinking is integrated in to studies of household preparedness following the Principles of Preparedness, by Sutton and Tierney (2006). The authors find that there is a geographical bias towards the Global North in studies of household preparedness. They also find that the majority of the literature does not make explicit references to how multiple hazards interact to shape preparedness strategies.
I think this paper is well embedded in the literature of disaster preparedness and that it could be valuable contribution to this literature. However, some revisions are required for the article to be suitable for publication, see my points below.
Text:
Check line 201 “(See Figure 3.Fig.3.).” ‘
Check line 456 (space missing between “11but”
Methodology
The authors state that after analyzing 138 of the 587 papers the ‘the researchers reached the thematic repetition point of data saturation’. Could the authors elaborate on how these 138 papers were selected out of the 587 papers in total? A further elaboration on how these papers were selected (for example through random sampling) could for example strengthen the claim of geographical bias in these studies.
Results
The authors are inconsistent in stating the source of their results. I often read ‘Many papers (line 261)’, ‘Several studies (line 270). I think it would strengthen the claims made by the authors to explicitly state how many papers these findings are based.
To me it does not become clear on which information the y-axis of figure 6 is based. How is this resource intensity inferred? The link to ‘the literature’ can be made more explicit. I am also not sure whether this figure is correctly placed under the Result section of this paper, or whether it is a part of the theoretical framework as described in the introduction of the paper.
I think this paper addresses an often overlooked component of disaster preparedness in face of multiple hazards, and therefor addresses a relevant scientific question I the scope of NHESS.
The paper proposes clear research suggestions to further the field of disaster preparedness in the context of multi-hazards by making suggestions for further research. These suggestions could perhaps be made more explicit; would there also be examples of good practices in preparedness literature that could be named there? Particularly in the suggestion to broaden the definition of what constitutes a household.
I think the paper is up to international standards. However, the figures need to be improved for it to be eligible for publication (see comments under point 12).
The literature review is well embedded into theoretical frameworks of household preparedness in the multi-hazard context. The literature review follows a scientific method, although the selection of the 138 out of 587 papers could perhaps be better elaborated (see point under General).
I think the results are sufficient to support the interpretations and the conclusions. I do however think that the results can reported in a more consistent way, see comment under Results.
I think the authors reach substantial conclusions that are backed by their findings in the literature.
I think the methodology applied in the literature search on Web of Science is sufficiently documented.
I think the title well reflects the work done in the paper.
The main findings stated in the abstract deviate from the findings listed in the conclusion section of the paper. These could be better aligned.
The abstract and findings are easy to understand to a wide audience. It would perhaps be good to also explicitly state the “Priority 4 of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–30” to increase the comprehensibility of the abstract.
Not applicable.
The quality of the figures in this paper should be improved. For example, fonts in figure 3 and 4 appear to be stretched. The color coding in figure 4 is a bit confusing, maybe another color than a light shade of green could be used to indicate the principle was ignored included in the study. Figure 5 is a screenshot, the selection of the graph element is still visible. For consistency it would be better to in figure 2 and 4 either show the number of studies or the percentage.
Author contributions are clearly listed under line 585
Yes
Yes
Yes
I do not find the paper to be overtly lengthy, I would consider this length to be appropriate for a review article.
Yes, the English language is of sufficient quality.
I would encourage the authors to include a supplementary table that shows all literature reviewed with this article.