Urbano Fra Paleo

Urbano Fra Paleo is a geographer specializing in disaster risk governance, with research focused on understanding patterns, processes, and institutional frameworks. He contributed to the development of the UNDRR/ISC Hazard Information Profiles (HIPs) and the 2025 update, and to the UNECE's Core Disaster Risk-Related Indicators. Most recently, he contributed to the EASAC Report Changing Wildfires: Policy Options for a Fire-literate and Fire-adapted Europe. This report provides policy options following an analysis of the scientific basis. Other notable contributions include the creation of an ontology to describe earthquake damage to built cultural heritage. Additionally, in collaboration with colleagues from various European universities, the Assessment Instrument for Sustainability in Higher Education was developed and tested across multiple contexts.

His early work involved utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for geospatial analysis of various hazards, such as for mapping and modeling volcanic hazards at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO). This research served as the foundation for the volcanic zoning of Hawaiʻi Island, prioritizing volcanic surface morphology over the previously used criterion of eruption frequency.

Urbano Fra edited the books Building safer communities, Governance, spatial planning, and responses to natural hazards (2009); Risk governance, The articulation of hazard, politics and ecology (2015); and Family Farms and the Conservation of Agrobiodiversity in Cuba, Food Security and Nature (2023) with Leonor Castiñeiras.

Prior to joining the University of Extremadura (Spain) as Full Professor of Human Geography, Urbano Fra was at the University of Santiago de Compostela from 2007 to 2013, and before that held positions at the University of Denver (United States) as Research Associate and as Visiting Professor at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace (Costa Rica). In addition, he is a research associate of the Institute for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action (IECAH). His fieldwork experience spans the United Sates, Mexico, Cuba, Morocco, Japan, in addition to Europe.

Urbano Fra serves on various international boards and committees, and provides scientific advice as a member of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction European Science and Technology Advisory Group (E-STAG), and to the European Commission's Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) as external expert.