Social impacts and social resilience

This study compares community experiences of slow- and rapid-onset flooding during Australia’s 2022–2023 floods. While both caused long recoveries, slow-onset floods created prolonged uncertainty, unique preparedness challenges, and delayed recovery needs

New social science research is helping strengthen tsunami safety messaging by showing how people understand evacuation maps, natural warnings and official alerts.

The ocean is rising faster now than at any point in recorded history. Rising sea levels have a significant impact on human rights, economic development, health, culture, the future of many countries and basic human dignity.

Climate-driven displacement is widely expected to push millions across international borders. Drawing on monthly bilateral flows for 127 developing-country origins, this column finds the reverse

This study underscores the significant barriers immigrant women face, including language limitations, limited access to resources, and strong reliance on faith-based coping strategies.

This paper analyses 150 years of census and hazard data to assess how extreme weather affected population trends in Northern Australia. It finds floods and cyclones can disrupt population growth highlighting need for resilience and adaptation planning.

This scoping review maps peer-reviewed evidence on drought adaptation in the SADC region, which exhibits an observed downward trend in precipitation, making it a valuable case to study diverse approaches to managing changing risk.

Study reveals correlation between heat and demographic structure, with air and land surface temperature showing different patterns in Germany.

Along the Nepal-Tibet border, the long road to recovery has only just begun. Amidst profound grief and loss, local communities are already providing support to their most vulnerable. Governments and international organisations should follow their lead.

Despite decades of warnings, neighborhoods in Reno and Spokane have sprawled ever closer to a hotter, drier wilderness. And in the summer, months of low humidity and hot weather prime the landscape to burn.

Major floods in Nepal and Sri Lanka show how disasters that strike before recovery is complete can deepen losses, weaken resilience and increase vulnerability. Experts argue that recovery progress should be measured alongside disaster risk.

Zambia’s 2024 drought exposed chronic infrastructure, water and sanitation failures in Mazyopa, fuelling a cholera outbreak and disproportionate impacts on women. Community advocacy is now driving demands for long-term resilience investments.

This paper examines how remittances influence household expenditure during drought and excess rainfall in the Kyrgyz Republic.

This article reports public reactions to a UK emergency phone alert on wildfire risk, highlighting concerns over alert fatigue, unclear guidance and the need for effective crisis communication.

The survey of over 2000 respondents in Nepal and Bangladesh confirms extreme heat is a pervasive and escalating risk, significantly degrading public health, livelihoods and well-being and provides evidence for increasing investment in heat interventions

Heat-related deaths look less dramatic than other climate disasters, yet they are far more frequent. This article looks into why Europe’s deadliest climate hazard remains its least visible one.

This paper describes eighteen misconceptions grouped in six themes (seismology, volcanoes and climate, systems and structures, volcanic hazards, timescales, photographs and footage) commonly encountered by volcanologists

A new model simulates the benefits of agrivoltaic farming, in which solar panels and crops share the same land.

Setting a maximum heat temperature for UK workplaces is now urgent, along with establishing clear regulatory standards and frameworks that mandate actions to protect workers’ wellbeing amidst current spells of hot weather.

This report outlines the geography and scale of household energy burden across the United States of America, with particular attention to the impacts of extreme heat and cooling costs.

A mixed-methods study identifies five heat risk archetypes in Austria, revealing how social inequalities, ageing and climate change interact to shape vulnerability through 2080.

A new survey suggests experiencing extreme weather may reduce people's sense of control over their lives, challenging assumptions that climate disasters automatically increase engagement, trust and action on climate change.

A census-based analysis of social vulnerability in Nepal showing how changes in sensitivity and adaptive capacity reshaped disaster risk between 2011 and 2021.

This study examines how Canadian university emergency websites communicate mental health preparedness, finding that physical safety guidance is far more visible than mental health support.

UCalgary scientist Dan Shugar lead author of study published in the journal Science on megatsunami more than twice height of the Calgary Tower.

This paper presents an empirical study examining the shortcomings of the current cyclone risk management approach and the consequent need to build long-term cyclone resilience in India.

This report presents the findings of the Climate Resilience Measurement for Communities (CRMC) baseline assessment across target communities in Madrid and Valencia.

As wildfires rushed down the hills surrounding Los Angeles in January 2025, Polymarket users were trying to correctly predict how many acres would burn — chasing a payout for getting it right.

Soaring temperatures caused by climate change are making Koshien increasingly uncomfortable and, at times, downright dangerous.

Drought and record heat have forced the Norfolk and Suffolk league to move kick-off to the end of August as the ground is deemed too dangerous to play on.

This study examines how residents’ perceptions of disaster heritage influence attitudes toward its preservation.

Nurses are collapsing during shifts amid “inhumane and impossible” conditions caused by extreme heat, their union has warned.

A study paints a fuller picture of how heat affects respiratory health, especially in Baltimore’s socially vulnerable neighborhoods.

This report measures the burden that heat places on workers and sets out what it would take to reduce it. Using the C-CIQ toolkit and a survey of 175 informal worker households in Dhaka, authors examine how heat affects workers.

Researchers at IIED interviewed 175 households engaged in informal work in Dhaka, whose jobs included construction, rickshaw pulling and garment manufacturing. Exposure to extreme heat is costing Bangladeshi workers huge chunks of their pay every year.

Across the U.S., millions of people live in affordable housing, and many struggle to make ends meet. And as the climate warms, they’re increasingly exposed to extreme heat.

This study bridges the existing gaps in quantifying risk and enhancing community defences by applying a cohesive five-pillar risk and resilience framework developed within the C2IMPRESS project.

As the majority of Tuvalu’s population applies to relocate to Australia, a haunting question is being confronted: what happens to a country if the people have to leave?

Tuvalu is also starting to disappear, and its people are grappling with what this means for their future.

The research examines the “risk perception gap,” or the difference between climate-related mortality estimates and public perceptions of climate risk, across U.S. counties.

When a heat wave arrives, the public health advice follows a familiar script: drink water, watch for heat stroke, check on people with heart or lung conditions. That list saves lives. But it leaves out chronic pain.

The report examines how urban heat threatens the creation of more and better jobs in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

As global temperatures rise, climate change increasingly affects daily life . Social connection is crucial, both for responding to extreme weather and for working together to help the entire community adapt to a changing climate.

Analysis of 2,118 cyclone impacts across US counties found social vulnerability rises after disasters but falls in the long term. Researchers warn that apparent gains may be due to displacement and crisis-driven urbanization and not equitable recovery.

For millions of workers across the region, acquiring that rice bowl is becoming increasingly difficult, putting people’s health at risk.

Researchers argue that their Cooling with Consent framework addresses the fact that not all communities are the same as to which cooling initiatives they will accept and so AI-driven heat adaptation solutions residents' buy-in.