Latest news on Disaster Risk Reduction

Despite the devastating impact that Hurricane Sandy had on the U.S. east coast in 2012, a large number of people in New Jersey are not preparing for a future storm. This reluctance to take action impedes the ability of communities to build resilience.

In recent years, a range of global flood models (GFMs) were developed, each utilizing different process descriptions as well as validation data sets and methods. To quantify the magnitude of these differences, studies assessed the performance of GFMs only on the continental and catchment level. Since the default model set-ups resulted in locally marked...

This paper reflects on two ongoing participatory action research projects conducted by UN-Habitat and research partners from Australian universities in Honiara, Solomon Islands and Port Vila, Vanuatu. Findings from consultations across 16 communities demonstrate the critical role of endogenous modes of resilience, as well as the strong correlation between...

This study explores the perceptions of health effects and support received by people affected by the 2011 southeast Queensland flood six years after the event.Researchers conducted a cross-sectional survey of 327 people in flood-affected areas. The questionnaire sought information about the ongoing social, economic, demographic and self-declared physical...

Localisation of aid, partnership, and capacity strengthening are increasingly prominent issues within the humanitarian sector. Calls for localisation are particularly strong in the disaster-prone region of Asia, with governments responding to humanitarian crises, such as those in Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh, limiting the access of international...

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established to support developing countries to take ambitious action on climate change. The flow of climate finance from industrialised to developing countries, particularly via the GCF, is a crucial component of international agreements on climate change. However, capacity constraints and the complex procedures for...

This report covers the human, structural and economic losses from disasters all over the world in March 2019.Findings in this global catastrophe report include: The anticipated global cost of flooding events in March 2019 amounts to USD 8 billion. Cyclone Idai has caused infrastructural damage of USD 1 billion in Mozambique alone, with 1,100 deaths...

This study reviews flood disasters in Nigeria and how the government has managed them over the past two decades. The extensive review of the literature is complemented by data obtained from Ajegunle, a community in Ajeromi–Ifelodun Local Government Area. Because of its proximity to water bodies, its large population and its small...

From 2016 to 2018, the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (University of Waterloo) developed and tested the Home Flood Protection Program (HFPP), which is an initiative designed to provide homeowners with practical information necessary to identify and limit their risk of basement flooding.A total of 510 HFPP assessments were completed. Ten flood risk...

Pouring through 10 years' worth of Southern California seismic data with the scientific equivalent of a fine-tooth comb, Caltech seismologists have identified nearly two million previously unidentified tiny earthquakes that occurred between 2008 and 2017. This research opens for new ways of detecting earthquakes.