Governance

This brief summarizes findings from a comparative study of DRM governance in Switzerland and Nepal, two mountainous states that face structurally similar hazards but operate under starkly different institutional, financial, and developmental conditions.

Authoritarian regimes have a history of keeping information about escalating disasters secret, even when it could harm their own citizens.

Houses can be built on floodplains even if they fail a crucial safety test, according to a high court judgment that will be of “immense interest” to developers across England and Wales.

This paper examines the associations between predictive preparedness, adaptive governance, institutional fragmentation, and recurrent shock reduction in Somalia through a quantitative, cross-sectional study.

Technical handbook for North Macedonia on risk and hazard assessment and protection and rescue planning, identifying gaps in coordination, methodology and data management; recommending EU-aligned, risk-informed approaches to preparedness and resilience.

This report synthesises social science evidence on climate adaptation and resilience for UK policymakers, highlighting adaptation as an ongoing social process shaped by people’s lived experiences, vulnerabilities, and social context.

On 11 June 2026, Lithuania’s Parliament adopted the Climate Change Adaptation Law, establishing a legal framework for developing and implementing adaptation policy, managing climate-related risks, and collecting and providing relevant information.

This research article assesses eight water stressors across Africa using exposure and vulnerability data. It finds WASH-service risks affect the largest populations and calls for stronger transboundary cooperation and improved data systems.

Based on five years of research with flood action groups in England, this paper shows how communities negotiate, contest and resist resilience agendas, developing a typology of emotional, symbolic, discursive, collective and procedural resistance.

In the old times, wildfires happened a lot more frequently than people assume. And wildfires also happened due to natural phenomena such as lightning. So both completely untouched ecosystems & humans in nature had to learn to live with wildfires

Peru built world-renowned defenses against glacial floods, before decentralisation and financial austerity caused them to crumble. After an era of impressive progress on preventative measures, hundreds of Peru’s glacial lakes are now at risk of bursting

This Technical Handbook guides North Macedonia’s Resilient Recovery Framework, consolidating EU-aligned evidence and tools, urging legal, institutional, and data reforms, and detailing stepwise, people-centered approaches for risk-informed recovery.

Officially reported data by national governments through the Sendai Framework Monitor show significant progress in reducing disaster mortality, strengthening disaster risk reduction strategies and expanding multi-hazard early warning systems.

A new Harvard dataset tracks corporate climate commitments and emissions across 25 years, as US federal reporting programmes are wound down.

This playbook explores how coalitions of local government, businesses, investors, insurers and communities can manage physical risk to improve their resilience and insurability in the face of increasing extreme weather events.

British Columbia’s droughts are becoming more severe and persistent. Researchers say the province must move beyond reactive water management and strengthen drought resilience through governance reform, water conservation and watershed planning.

On September 15, the eruption of Mount Anak Krakatau sent volcanic ash up to 15,000 metres and produced rumbling heard 700 kilometres away. Eight airports suspended operations and thousands of flights were disrupted.

The report has been prepared upon request of the General Assembly in its resolution 80/137 on DRR, providing an overview of progress towards the goal, global targets and priorities for action of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030.

The tiny country contributes less than 0.1 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions—but is experiencing the consequences of climate change firsthand.

This publication details notable highlights from the Resilience Initiative Africa Project, which was implemented by UNDRR's Regional Office for Africa between August 2023–March 2026.

This brief examines both the escalating human rights crisis and the binding international legal obligations that apply as climate-driven sea level rise intensifies.

An IRDR-UNDRR webinar examined the 26 August 2026 China-Nepal flash flood, highlighting cascading transboundary risks, monitoring and data-sharing gaps, and calling for a Himalayan Monitoring Centre, FORIN study, and stronger multi-hazard risk assessment.

Following a series of major disasters and inquiries that questioned New Zealand’s capacity to deal with them, the new Emergency Management Act 2026 is the most significant improvement in more than two decades.

This practitioner’s brief synthesises lessons from GIZ’s Global Programme on Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change and provides recommendations on governance, data, financing, rights-based approaches and cross-regional learning.

This paper calls for a shift from Bridge Management Systems to Bridge Resilience Systems, integrating disaster governance, critical infrastructure, climate risk, ecosystem management and connectivity to protect essential functions during disruption.

This article compares typhoon communication in the Philippines and Vietnam, showing how political structures, corruption, propaganda and media control shape disaster visibility, often prioritising regime preservation over public safety.

Combining Global Fire Atlas records with Afrobarometer surveys of more than 100,000 people in 34 African countries, this study shows that people living close to wildfires are more likely to vote, contact local councillors and attend community meetings.

A decade after Cape Town came within days of running dry, a senior city policy official reflects on how the 'day zero' drought reshaped the way the city collects, shares, and acts on data.

This paper examines institutional heat risk communication in England. Interviews with 29 practitioners revealed strong alert and coordination systems, but uneven public engagement, limited evaluation and capacity constraints that hinder effectiveness.

Given its speed, scale and scope, the Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease that broke out in the DRC in mid-2026 could become a global epidemic. Preventing a fast-spreading outbreak that has already taken over a large geographical region is difficult.

This report identifies key challenges in preparing for future changes to the critical risk landscape, drawing on reports, ‘Survey on Governance of Critical Risks’ and ‘Survey on Governance of Critical Infrastructure Resilience’ carried out in 2022-25.

Climate vulnerability is often associated with cyclones and disappearing coastlines, but major climate risks are also affecting landlocked countries, where climate change is altering glaciers, lakes and rivers that sustain lives and livelihoods.

Using a qualitative key informant interviewing design, this study examined how flood risk management (FRM) is implemented in Rize through the perspectives of 51 senior civil ser-vants, appointees, technical experts, and managers involved in FRM

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.

The Himalayan flood exposed a risk that begins beyond Nepal’s borders – and demands a response that does too.

Bosai is a Japanese concept that encompasses all stages of disaster management. In a country where natural hazards are a frequent threat, understanding bosai is one of the most practical ways for individuals to protect themselves and those around them.

The report assesses current context of sea level rise, key challenges and ongoing efforts by Member States and the UN system to address such challenges. The report builds on the Sep 2024 high-level plenary meeting to address sea level rise threats.

This toolkit examines how extreme weather events fuel mis- and disinformation and provides frameworks for assessing readiness, triaging threats, building partnerships and strengthening information resilience before, during and after disasters.

Japan is facing growing disaster risks while population decline reduces local response capacity. Following failures in delivering relief supplies after Kumamoto earthquake, the article urges stronger public-private partnerships and national coordination.

The report examines pathways to limit and reverse1.5°C overshoot. While limiting warming to 1.5°C remains central to the Paris Agreement, current policies and near-term trajectories say exceeding this threshold is now widely considered unavoidable.

The new mayor wants to invest in coastal resilience, but he will have to decide which areas of the city to protect. New York City has more than 500 miles of coastline, no two miles of the waterfront are quite the same and are vulnerable in different ways.

A deadly Nepal-Tibet border flood highlights how limited cross-border data sharing, restricted access to Tibet and weak early warning systems can hinder disaster preparedness. The article calls for greater regional cooperation on climate and flood risks.

The disaster in Rasuwa has once again exposed the vulnerability of Himalayan communities to climate-driven hazards and highlighted gaps in monitoring and early warning systems.