A method and system for characterizing, detecting, and predicting or forecasting multiple target events from a past history of these events includes compressing temporal data streams into self-organizing map (SOM) clusters, and determining trajectories of the temporal streams via the clusters to predict the multiple target events. The system includes an evolutionary multi-objective optimization (EMO) module for processing the temporal data streams, which are obtained from a plurality of heterogeneous domains; a SOM module for characterizing the temporal data streams into self-organizing map clusters; and a target event prediction (TEP) module for generating prediction models of the map clusters. The SOM module employs a vector quantization method that places a set of vectors on a low-dimensional grid in an ordered fashion. The prediction models each include trajectories of the temporal data streams, and the system predicts the multiple target events using the trajectories.