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Geoscientific data combined with historical documents on past natural hazard events and on the disasters that followed are essential to improve mitigation plans. It is only with this method that the full scale of potential rapid changes that are not covered by the instrumental record can be obtained. Therefore, the collection of these past data and their integration into planning should become one of the priorities of the Hyogo Framework of Actions. This paper analyses the following five case studies: global warming impact on the indigenous populations at high latitudes of Canada, hurricane impact on the southern coast of the USA as experienced in New Orleans, rapid level rise in several lakes of the Argentinian Pampas with emphasis on Laguna Mar Chiquita, the rapid sea level rise of the Caspian Sea as seen from Iran and the tsunami risk in a large Alpine lake of Northern Italy, Lake Como. In each area, the main natural hazard is part of a potential series of hazards that, if combined, could lead to a shift from disaster to catastrophe. The most successful cases of transfer of information between geoscientists and end-users are when the hazards and subsequent disasters are visible or when the messengers bearing the information are trusted by the local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]