Disaster risk communications library

There were two “systems” that warned people about the impending danger that day: one built by the state relying on sensors and SMS messages, the other relying on community-based ties. Only the second worked reliably.

This study tests a survey tool for identifying information voids during climate emergencies, showing how gaps in information quantity, quality, source and channel can affect disaster communication.

Machine-learning techniques could help provide more warning. By detecting subtle changes in the continuous vibrations around a volcano, they can potentially identify signs of an impending eruption hours beforehand.

This study shows that perceived false flood alarms can reduce evacuation behaviour, while positive emotional responses to false alarms may help maintain protective action during future warnings.

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

This study evaluates a music-based hurricane preparedness video in the Caribbean, finding that it can increase self-efficacy, trust and positive emotions alongside preparedness intentions.

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.

Journalists, editors, disaster management authorities and regional partners gathered in N'Djamena from 27–29 July for a regional workshop aimed at strengthening climate reporting and media resilience across one of Africa's most vulnerable regions.

Climate in Common is a communications toolkit that will help groups connect with working class people. It gives campaigners, civil society organizations and policymakers ten practical tools for building working class engagement with climate policy.

This study examines gaps in weather and climate information for hard-to-reach communities, proposing an information supply chain framework to improve equitable warning reach and response.

This study assesses cell broadcast alert messages in France, showing gaps between recommended practice and real use, and highlighting how clearer, more complete message content can improve public warning and protective action.

This study examines how rainfall forecast errors during Typhoon Khanun shaped public emotions online, showing that underestimated and overestimated forecasts can increase anxiety, confusion and fatigue in risk communication.

This article examines emergency communication in the Pacific, highlighting how national broadcasters are relied on during disasters but often lack the resources, infrastructure and formal support needed to stay on air.

This study examines how cultural worldviews shape support for climate and biodiversity policies in Japan, finding that biodiversity conservation may face less worldview-driven resistance than climate action.

Forest fires will continue, meaning we need ongoing investment in prevention, land management and firefighting resources. But we also need to pay more attention to human behaviour.

This operational guidance provides direction for designing and implementing people-centred, inclusive multi-hazard early warning systems that effectively reach and protect mobile populations and other groups affected by changing locations or circumstances

This study compares media coverage of Spain’s 1982 Tous dam disaster, showing how national and regional newspapers framed the event through human impact, economic losses and growing attention to political and institutional responsibility.

UNICEF activated U-Report as a tool for mass communication to raise awareness and share life-saving information with young people.

This study examined how personal disaster experience, community communication, and media-based disaster comparison shape farmers' risk perception and planting intentions in the Hetao Irrigation District.

This position paper examines how "quality" should be understood in multilingual crisis translation, arguing that textual accuracy alone is an insufficient measure of a good translation in high-stakes emergency contexts.

This study examines how meteorological disaster warnings influence public risk perception and protective action, showing that impact-based information and clear guidance can strengthen early warning communication.

This study examines community resilience to urban flooding in deprived areas, highlighting how household preparedness, collective action and institutional communication shape protective behavior and flood risk management.

This study examines post-disaster risk communication after the Grenfell Tower fire, arguing that acknowledging uncertainty, enabling inclusive risk assessment and applying precaution can help rebuild trust between authorities and affected communities.

This study examines how social media influencers and entertainment-oriented community fan pages reframe disaster communication, showing how emotional and humorous storytelling can reshape official messages and public discourse during Typhoon Yagi

This study presents a Telegram bot framework for near real-time urban rainfall and flood information, combining automated data acquisition and probabilistic flood risk maps to support decision-making in resource-constrained cities.

What would happen if a Category 5 tropical cyclone formed in the Mozambique Channel?

This study addresses the limitations of using social media analytics in disaster management, arguing that human analysis remains indispensable, especially when dealing with vulnerable populations.

The study is about developing a domain-adaptive approach to improve multilingual crisis communication in situations where high-quality parallel data are limited.

This paper presents the outcomes of an initial investigation into the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Neural Machine Translation (NMT) systems in translating high-stakes messages.

The farmer’s phone had vibrated just an hour earlier – a community alert of heavy rainfall expected within 48 hours. These messages now arrive regularly.

The inland extent of watches and warnings will now be included, and an experimental cone will capture more areas at risk.

Help shape a new pilot project by selecting priority hazards and recommending experts for the Technical Working Group. The survey takes 5 to 7 minutes and all responses are confidential.

This publication explores how generative language models combine social media, news and weather data to detect disasters quickly and accurately, using satellite data to validate results from flood and wildfire case studies.

This review analyzes peer-reviewed studies to examine how risk communication strategies vary across temporal dimensions, hazard groups and intended purpose.

The study examines how visual cues, especially maps and warning symbols, can improve flood early warning messages by helping citizens understand event magnitude, timing, impacts and recommended protective actions.

UNDRR & ARISE Japan joint symposium 2026 "Strengthening disaster risk reduction by advancing investment in resilience and translating science into Practical Action” as held in Tokyo with the presence of Mr. Kishore, Head of UNDRR, on 10 March 2026.

Extreme weather is one of the most harmful impacts of climate change, posing a risk to human health and well-being worldwide. However, the types and impacts of extreme weather vary widely across countries.

Digital technologies have revolutionized how we live, connect, and work, yet our growing reliance on these systems has created risks that often go unnoticed.

This expert report examines how digital infrastructure, now central to essential services such as healthcare, finance, and emergency response, is creating new forms of systemic risk through increasing interdependence.

This article explores the concept of risk communication, highlighting the lack of a unified definition and proposing a transdisciplinary, complex-thinking approach to better understand it.

As record-breaking heat intensifies, Japan is pioneering a bold experiment in climate communication—using language, lived experience, and public participation to transform awareness of extreme weather into meaningful action

This study shows how flood impact storylines can help emergency managers decide where and when to deploy mobile levees, reducing damage and buying critical time for evacuation during extreme flood events.

This study investigates the mechanisms through which collaborative governance between community organizations and residential management bodies enhances tsunami disaster preparedness in coastal urban areas.

This report brings together insights to examine how harmful information impacts responses to disasters, public health emergencies, migration and conflict, ultimately providing both evidence and a roadmap for action.

The article argues that the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which killed more than 23,000 people largely due to poor preparedness and miscommunication, became a turning point that highlighted the role of vulnerability in disasters.

This paper conceptualizes and tests a novel survey tool designed to detect information voids across four key dimensions: information quantity, quality, source, and channel.

This study finds that climate change appears in only 2.2% of German TV airtime, mostly in news, meaning it reaches engaged viewers but remains largely unseen by climate‑distant audiences.