Staff profile

Since 1 March 2023, I have been the Wilson Chair of Hazard and Risk, and the Executive Director of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR), Durham University, where I am also affiliated with the Geography Department.

My research focuses on multi-hazard interrelationships along with single hazard research in landslides, earthquakes, floods and wildfires. Research subthemes include anthropogenic processes, invasive species, time-series analyses, mathematical models, visualization, complexity, confronting models with data, and communicating science.

Previous to coming to Durham University, I received a BA in physics from Reed College (1986), spent two years in the US Peace Corps (1986-1988) as a high-school teacher of chemistry/physics in Niger, West Africa, and three years at Stanford Linear Accelerator (1988-1991) as an accelerator operation and operations engineer. I then received a PhD in geophysics/stratigraphy from Cornell University (1998) working with Terry Jordan and Don Turcotte, after which I was a Fulbright Fellow (1998-1999) studying natural hazards at IANIGLA in Mendoza, Argentina. Most recently (9/2000−2/2023), and the majority of my academic career, I spent a very enjoyable 22.5 years as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader and then Professor of Natural & Environmental Hazards in the Geography Department, King’s College London.

I was President for four years (2007−2011) of the Natural Hazards Division of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), Programme Committee Chair for the EGU General Assembly (2010-2011) and Programme Co-Chair of the AOGS–EGU Conference Series on New Dimensions for Natural Hazards in Asia (2018−2022).

From 2015-2022, I was PI on 6 research grants (£1.9M to KCL, NERC/EC/FCDO/DFID/ESA) and Co-I on 5 research grants (£2.8M to KCL, NERC/EC/ESRC/GCRF), particularly acting as workpackage or theme leader on multi-hazard interrelationships.

I am also executive editor of Natural Hazards & Earth System Sciences (NHESS) and have authorship on >80 peer-review publications with >10,000 citations (Google Scholar) to my publications.

Chapter in book

• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (1999). Self-affine time series: I. Generation and analyses. In R. Dmowska, & B. Saltzman (Eds.), ADVANCES IN GEOPHYSICS, VOL 40: LONG-RANGE PERSISTENCE IN GEOPHYSICAL TIME SERIES (1-90). ELSEVIER ACADEMIC PRESS INC

Conference Paper

• Moreno, V., Malamud, B., & Chuvieco, E. (2011). Wildfire Frequency-Area Statistics in Spain. In A. Stein, E. Pebesma, & G. Heuvelink (Eds.), . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2011.07.032
• Millington, J. D., Perry, G. L., & Malamud, B. D. (2006). Models, data and mechanisms: qQuantifying wildfire regimes. In G. Cello, & B. Malamud (Eds.), . https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.2006.261.01.12
• Turcotte, D. L., Malamud, B. D., Guzzetti, F., & Reichenbach, P. (2006). A general landslide distribution applied to a small inventory in Todi, Italy. In G. Cello, & B. Malamud (Eds.), . https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.2006.261.01.08
• Malamud, B. D., & Turcotte, D. L. (2006). An inverse cascade explanation for the power-law frequency - area statistics of earthquakes, landslides and wildfires. In G. Cello, & B. Malamud (Eds.), . https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.2006.261.01.01
• McSharry, P., & Malamud, B. (2005). Quantifying self-similarity in cardiac inter-beat interval time series.

Journal Article

• Kreibich, H., de Ruiter, M. C., Goda, K., Keiler, M., Suppasri, A., & Malamud, B. D. (2022). Critical research in the water-related multi-hazard field. Nature Sustainability, 5(2), 90-91. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00833-0
• Tilloy, A., Malamud, B. D., & Joly-Laugel, A. (2022). A methodology for the spatiotemporal identification of compound hazards: wind and precipitation extremes in Great Britain (1979-2019). Earth System Dynamics, 13(2), 993-1020. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-993-2022
• De Angeli, S., Malamud, B. D., Rossi, L., Taylor, F. E., Trasforini, E., & Rudari, R. (2022). A multi-hazard framework for spatial-temporal impact analysis. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 73, Article 102829. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102829
• Trogrlic, R. S., Donovan, A., & Malamud, B. D. (2022). Invited perspectives: Views of 350 natural hazard community members on key challenges in natural hazards research and the Sustainable Development Goals. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 22(8), 2771-2790. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2771-2022
• Sperling, S., Wooster, M. J., & Malamud, B. D. (2020). Influence of Satellite Sensor Pixel Size and Overpass Time on Undercounting of Cerrado/Savannah Landscape-Scale Fire Radiative Power (FRP): An Assessment Using the MODIS Airborne Simulator. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire3020011
• Taylor, F. E., Millington, J. D., Jacob, E., Malamud, B. D., & Pelling, M. (2020). Messy maps: Qualitative GIS representations of resilience. Landscape and Urban Planning, 198, Article 103771. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103771
• Tilloy, A., Malamud, B. D., Winter, H., & Joly-Laugel, A. (2020). Evaluating the efficacy of bivariate extreme modelling approaches for multi-hazard scenarios. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 20(8), 2091-2117. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2091-2020
• Taylor, F. E., Tarolli, P., & Malamud, B. D. (2020). Preface: Landslide-transport network interactions. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 20(10), 2585-2590. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2585-2020
• Gill, J. C., Malamud, B. D., Barillas, E. M., & Noriega, A. G. (2020). Construction of regional multi-hazard interaction frameworks, with an application to Guatemala. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 20(1), 149-180. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-149-2020
• Tilloy, A., Malamud, B. D., Winter, H., & Joly-Laugel, A. (2019). A review of quantification methodologies for multi-hazard interrelationships. Earth-Science Reviews, 196, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2019.102881
• Taylor, F. E., Malamud, B. D., Witt, A., & Guzzetti, F. (2018). Landslide shape, ellipticity and length-to-width ratios. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 43(15), 3164-3189. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4479
• Reichenbach, P., Rossi, M., Malamud, B. D., Mihir, M., & Guzzetti, F. (2018). A review of statistically-based landslide susceptibility models. Earth-Science Reviews, 180, 60-91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2018.03.001
• Gill, J. C., & Malamud, B. D. (2017). Anthropogenic processes, natural hazards, and interactions in a multi-hazard framework. Earth-Science Reviews, 166, 246-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2017.01.002
• Turbelin, A. J., Malamud, B. D., & Francis, R. A. (2017). Mapping the global state of invasive alien species: patterns of invasion and policy responses. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 26(1), 78-92. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12517
• Witt, A., Malamud, B. D., Mangili, C., & Brauer, A. (2017). Analysis and modelling of a 9.3 kyr palaeoflood record: correlations, clustering, and cycles. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21(11), 5547-5581. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5547-2017
• Malamud, B. D., Turcotte, D. L., & Brooks, H. E. (2016). Spatial-temporal clustering of tornadoes. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 16(12), 2823-2834. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-2823-2016
• Gill, J. C., & Malamud, B. D. (2016). Hazard interactions and interaction networks (cascades) within multi-hazard methodologies. Earth System Dynamics, 7(3), 659-679. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-659-2016
• Bjorkegren, A., Grimmond, C., Kotthaus, S., & Malamud, B. (2015). CO2 emission estimation in the urban environment: Measurement of the CO2 storage term. Atmospheric Environment, 122, 775-790. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.10.012
• Taylor, F. E., Malamud, B. D., Freeborough, K., & Demeritt, D. (2015). Enriching Great Britain's National Landslide Database by searching newspaper archives. Geomorphology, 249(SI), 52-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.05.019
• Gill, J. C., & Malamud, B. D. (2014). Reviewing and visualizing the interactions of natural hazards. Reviews of Geophysics, 52(4), 680-722. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013rg000445
• Witt, A., & Malamud, B. D. (2013). Quantification of Long-Range Persistence in Geophysical Time Series: Conventional and Benchmark-Based Improvement Techniques. Surveys in Geophysics, 34(5), 541-651. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-012-9217-8
• Parkes, B., Wetterhall, F., Pappenberger, F., He, Y., Malamud, B., & Cloke, H. (2013). Assessment of a 1-hour gridded precipitation dataset to drive a hydrological model: a case study of the summer 2007 floods in the Upper Severn, UK. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2011.025
• Sachs, M., Yoder, M., Turcotte, D., Rundle, J., & Malamud, B. (2012). Black swans, power laws, and dragon-kings: Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, wildfires, floods, and SOC models. European Physical Journal - Special Topics, 205(1), 167-182. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2012-01569-3
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (2012). Statistics of severe tornadoes and severe tornado outbreaks. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 12(18), 8459-8473. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-8459-2012
• Newman, W. I., Turcotte, D. L., & Malamud, B. D. (2012). Emergence of patterns in random processes. Physical review E: Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics, 86(2, 2), Article 026103. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.86.026103
• Blackett, M., Wooster, M. J., & Malamud, B. D. (2011). Exploring land surface temperature earthquake precursors: A focus on the Gujarat (India) earthquake of 2001 (vol 38, L15303, 2011). Geophysical Research Letters, 38, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011gl049428
• Blackett, M., Wooster, M. J., & Malamud, B. D. (2011). Exploring land surface temperature earthquake precursors: A focus on the Gujarat (India) earthquake of 2001. Geophysical Research Letters, 38, Article L15303. https://doi.org/10.1029/2011gl048282
• Malamud, B., Turcotte, D., & Grimmond, C. (2011). Temperature trends at the Mauna Loa observatory, Hawaii. Climate of the Past, 7(3), 975-983. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-7-975-2011
• Ghil, M., Yiou, P., Hallegatte, S., Malamud, B., Naveau, P., Soloviev, A., …Zaliapin, I. (2011). Extreme events: dynamics, statistics and prediction. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 18(3), 295-350. https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-18-295-2011
• Yiou, P., Malamud, B., & Rust, H. (2011). ``Extreme Events: Nonlinear Dynamics and Time Series Analysis'' Preface. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 18(6), 895-897. https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-18-895-2011
• Pereira, M., Malamud, B., Trigo, R., & Alves, P. (2011). The history and characteristics of the 1980-2005 Portuguese rural fire database. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 11(12), 3343-3358. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-11-3343-2011
• Rossi, M., Witt, A., Guzzetti, F., Malamud, B. D., & Peruccacci, S. (2010). Analysis of historical landslide time series in the Emilia-Romagna region, northern Italy. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 35(10), 1123-1137. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.1858
• Witt, A., Malamud, B. D., Rossi, M., Guzzetti, F., & Peruccacci, S. (2010). Temporal correlations and clustering of landslides. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 35(10), 1138-1156. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.1998
• Newman, W. I., Malamud, B. D., & Turcotte, D. L. (2010). Statistical properties of record-breaking temperatures. Physical review E: Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics, 82(6, 2), Article 066111. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.82.066111
• Millington, J. D., Wainwright, J., Perry, G. L., Romero-Calcerrada, R., & Malamud, B. D. (2009). Modelling Mediterranean landscape succession-disturbance dynamics: A landscape fire-succession model. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.03.013
• Freeborn, P. H., Wooster, M. J., Roberts, G., Malamud, B. D., & Xu, W. (2009). Development of a virtual active fire product for Africa through a synthesis of geostationary and polar orbiting satellite data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 113(8), 1700-1711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2009.03.013
• Gosling, S. N., Lowe, J. A., McGregor, G. R., Pelling, M., & Malamud, B. D. (2009). Associations between elevated atmospheric temperature and human mortality: a critical review of the literature. Climatic Change, 92(3-4), 299-341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-008-9441-x
• Main, I., Malamud, B., Bean, C., & McCloskey, J. (2006). Scale in structure and dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4004.2006.47624.x
• Malamud, B. D., & Turcotte, D. L. (2006). The applicability of power-law frequency statistics to floods. Journal of Hydrology, 322(1-4), 168-180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.02.032
• Rundle, J., Rundle, P., Donnellan, A., Turcotte, D., Shcherbakov, R., Li, P., …Tiampo, K. (2005). A simulation-based approach to forecasting the next great San Francisco earthquake. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(43), 15363-15367. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0507528102
• Malamud, B., Millington, J., & Perry, G. (2005). Characterizing wildfire regimes in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(13), 4694-4699. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0500880102
• Malamud, B., Morein, G., & Turcotte, D. (2005). Log-periodic behavior in a forest-fire model. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 12(5), 575-585. https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-12-575-2005
• Malamud, B., Turcotte, D., Guzzetti, F., & Reichenbach, P. (2005). Landslides, earthquakes, and erosion (vol 229, pg 45, 2004). Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 231(1-2), 161-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2004.12.017
• Malamud, B. (2004). Tails of natural hazards. Physics world, 17(8), 31-35
• Malamud, B., Turcotte, D., Guzzetti, F., & Reichenbach, P. (2004). Landslide inventories and their statistical properties. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 29(6), 687-711. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.1064
• Turcotte, D., & Malamud, B. (2004). Landslides, forest fires, and earthquakes: examples of self-organized critical behavior. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 340(4), 580-589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2004.05.009
• Malamud, B., Turcotte, D., Guzzetti, F., & Reichenbach, P. (2004). Landslides, earthquakes, and erosion. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 229(1-2), 45-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2004.10.018
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (2003). Shelf record of climatic changes in flood magnitude and frequency, north-coastal California: Comment. Geology, 31(3), https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613%282003%29031%3C0288%3Asrocci%3E2.0.co%3B2
• Turcotte, D., Shcherbakov, R., Malamud, B., & Kucinskas, A. (2002). Is the Martian crust also the Martian elastic lithosphere?. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 107(E11), Article 5091. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001je001594
• Guzzetti, F., Malamud, B., Turcotte, D., & Reichenbach, P. (2002). Power-law correlations of landslide areas in central Italy. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 195(3-4), 169-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0012-821x%2801%2900589-1
• Turcotte, D., Malamud, B., Guzzetti, F., & Reichenbach, P. (2002). Self-organization, the cascade model, and natural hazards. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(1), 2530-2537. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.012582199
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (2001). Wavelet analyses of Mars polar topography. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 106(E8), 17497-17504. https://doi.org/10.1029/2000je001333
• Rundle, J., Klein, W., Turcotte, D., & Malamud, B. (2000). Precursory seismic activation and critical-point phenomena. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 157(11-12), 2165-2182. https://doi.org/10.1007/pl00001079
• Kossobokov, V., Keilis-Borok, V., Turcotte, D., & Malamud, B. (2000). Implications of a statistical physics approach for earthquake hazard assessment and forecasting. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 157(11-12), 2323-2349. https://doi.org/10.1007/pl00001086
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (2000). Cellular-automata models applied to natural hazards. https://doi.org/10.1109/5992.841795
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (1999). Self-organized criticality applied to natural hazards. Natural Hazards, 20(2-3), 93-116. https://doi.org/10.1023/a%3A1008014000515
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (1999). Self-affine time series: measures of weak and strong persistence. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, 80(1-2), 173-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-3758%2898%2900249-3
• Turcotte, D., Malamud, B., Morein, G., & Newman, W. (1999). An inverse-cascade model for self-organized critical behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-4371%2899%2900092-8
• Malamud, B., & Turcotte, D. (1999). How many plumes are there?. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 174(1-2), 113-124. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0012-821x%2899%2900257-5
• Turcotte, D., Morein, G., Roberts, D., & Malamud, B. (1999). Catastrophic resurfacing and episodic subduction on Venus. Icarus, 139(1), 49-54. https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.1999.6084
• Malamud, B., Morein, G., & Turcotte, D. (1998). Forest fires: An example of self-organized critical behavior. Science, 281(5384), 1840-1842. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.281.5384.1840
• Pelletier, J., Malamud, B., Blodgett, T., & Turcotte, D. (1997). Scale-invariance of soil moisture variability and its implications for the frequency-size distribution of landslides. Engineering Geology, 48(3-4), 255-268. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0013-7952%2897%2900041-0
• Malamud, B., & Mccrone, W. (1981). DIRECT POSITIVE COLOR PHOTOMICROGRAPHY