News and announcements

Mainstreaming DRR into policies and practices are not born overnight. With this in mind, for mainstreaming to effectively take place, an understanding of gaps and opportunities in existing legal frameworks should be thoroughly understood...

Instead of building walls to keep floods out, developers are beginning to wonder – why not open up, and let the water in? 'We see the water as a friend, rather than foe. The aim is to manage the incoming water, and direct it where we want it to go – if needs be, into the development's car parks or garden squares. The fact is, traditional engineering solutions are not going to provide a long-term solution to climate change.'...

The Tokyo Earthquake Research Institute estimates that there is a 70 percent chance that a major earthquake would shake the Tokyo area within the next 30 years, reports Deutsche Welle. But the city has been preparing with regular drills, compulsory building resistance tests, long-life generators and earthquake proof buildings...

A Department of Building Inspection special report published in the San Francisco Public Press lists about 3,000 seismically unfit buildings in the city - homes of 58,000 people. The 'soft-story' buildings on the list have weak ground floors, thus, they may be similar to those that suffered the most damage in the 1989 earthquake in the region...

The Zambia Red Cross Society has initiated the ‘The Zambezi River Initiative’ (ZRBI), which will identify risks of hazards and existing capacities as well as addressing food security, water and water born disease issues of the over 600 thousand inhabitants who live in the area...

'Across most of southern Australia, the projections of the future are for warmer and drier conditions, so when we experience warm and dry conditions, growing those crops, canola, wheat, barley, etc. will be more challenging in the future,' said CSIRO climate applications scientist Steve Crimp...

Residents and authorities should be prepared for the risk that climate change induced sea level rise is threatening to flood $300 billion worth of property and infrastructure, warned scientists. The Australian government has developed sea level rise maps for scenarios of 05.m, 0.8m, as well as 1.1m...

Better land use can ensure protection of life and property against onslaught of disasters, said Senator Gregorio 'Gringo' Honasan, during his dialogue with media, government information officers, and the academe in Iloilo city...