Unpacking disaster risk reduction (DRR): Building practical approaches to identify and reduce risks

Time

9.00am (GMT+10)

About

Disaster risk reduction is everyone's responsibility. AIDR is offering this workshop for anyone who has a role in reducing risk, building resilience, or wants to take action in their work or community. It is suited to those seeking to build, refresh or deepen their understanding of disaster risk reduction and its practical application.

Disaster risk is often seen as the result of individual events, but in reality, it is shaped by interconnected systems, drivers and decisions over time. This full-day workshop invites participants to unpack how disaster risk is created, and what can be done to reduce it in practice.

Rather than a traditional “teaching” session, this workshop is designed as a shared learning experience. Participants will bring their own knowledge, professional experience, lived experience and perspectives into the room. Building on discussions and reflections from across the conference, the workshop will create an opportunity to collectively unpack disaster risk, explore different ways of understanding it, and learn from one another.

Facilitated by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR), with guest contributor Professor JC Gaillard (Ahorangi o te Matawhenua, Professor of Geography, Waipapa Taumata Rau/The University of Auckland), the workshop will explore core disaster risk reduction (DRR) concepts and introduce practical tools that can be applied across different contexts. Participants will work together to examine how hazards, exposure, vulnerability and capacity combine to shape risk, and how disasters emerge over time rather than in isolation.

The session will draw on Australian and international frameworks, including the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, and Action Plan, and explore how these can support practice. Participants will also use tools such as the Pressure and Release (PAR) model to unpack how risk is driven by underlying systems such as planning, governance, inequality and broader social and environmental factors.

Participants will leave with practical tools and approaches they have worked through during the workshop, insights gained from the experiences of others, and increased confidence to apply DRR thinking within their work, organisations and communities.

What participants will learn

Delegates who attend this session will:

• Explore how disaster risk is created through interconnected systems, drivers and conditions.
• Apply disaster risk reduction concepts and tools to analyse risk in real-world contexts.
• Reflect on how policy, practice and lived experience can inform disaster risk reduction.
• Identify practical opportunities to reduce risk and build resilience within their own work, organisations and communities