Assessing natural risks for railway infrastructure and transportation in Austria Natural hazards can have serious societal and economic impacts. Worldwide around one third of economic losses due to natural hazards are attributable to floods. The majority of natural hazards are triggered by weather related extremes such as heavy precipitation rapid snow melt or extreme temperatures. Some of them and in particular floods are expected to further increase in terms of frequency and or intensity in the coming decades due to the impacts of climate change. In this context the European Alps areas are constantly disclosed as being particularly sensitive. In order to enhance the resilience of societies to natural hazards risk assessments are substantial as they can deliver comprehensive risk information to be used as a basis for effective and sustainable decision making in natural hazards management. So far current assessment approaches mostly focus on single societal or economic sectors – e.g. flood damage models largely concentrate on private sector housing – and other important sectors such as the transport…