1. Home
  2. Knowledge Base

Knowledge Base highlights and editors' picks

Top stories and editors' picks from the most recent additions. Explore the whole Knowledge Base.

Every week the PreventionWeb team of editors selects the latest news and research, reports and publications on disaster risk reduction – here is their selection of the latest must-read content.

Hurricane Irma traverses the Eastern Caribbean in this satellite view
Update

La Niña is coming, raising the chances of a dangerous Atlantic hurricane season – an atmospheric scientist explains this climate phenomenon

One of the big contributors to the record-breaking global temperatures over the past year – El Niño – is nearly gone, and its opposite, La Niña, is on the way. Whether that’s a relief or not depends in part on where you live.
Conversation Media Group, the
Redwood forest canopy
Update

Forest degradation increases community vulnerability to extreme floods

This blog focuses on how forests' ability to regulate the movement of rainwater and snowmelt through forested landscapes can be degraded by industrial logging. It is part of a joint series between the David Suzuki Foundation and NRDC.
Natural Resources Defense Council
Chittagong, Bangladesh, 05 August, 2023 Due to continuous heavy rain, roads in different areas of Chittagong were flooded on Saturday.
Research briefs

Alerting communities to hyperlocalized urban flooding

A high-accuracy, low-cost sensor network may change the way urban floods are detected and monitored.
Eos - AGU
Aerial view of trees in a park
Update

A ‘sponge city’ may be your home in 2050

It’s estimated that close to 7 billion people will live in urban areas in 2050. For people to thrive in a more dangerous world, cities will need to look very different.
Conversation Media Group, the
A small Asian girl hides behind the brick wall from the sun.
Update

Over 10 million children affected by high heat in Thailand

Babies and young children are often at the greatest risk of heat-related mortality.
United Nations Children's Fund (Global Headquarters, New York)
Iluminated light bulb is located on soil and plant are growing.
Update

Linking investment decisions to climate adaptation and resilience impact

Working in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders across the development finance and impact investing communities, this work sets out a practical framework for assessing adaptation and resilience impact across a broad range of investments.
United Nations Environment Programme
A group of people hide from heavy rain under a building while three persons in the background walk with umbrellas
Update

Supercharged thunderstorms: have we underestimated how climate change drives extreme rain and floods?

For Australia, we helped develop a comprehensive review of the latest climate science to guide preparedness for future floods. This showed the increase per degree of global warming was about 7-28% for hourly or shorter duration extreme rain.
Conversation Media Group, the
Forest next to a city in Brazil
Update

El Niño and climate change impacts slam Latin America and Caribbean in 2023

The State of the Climate in Latin America report, accompanied by an interactive story map, complements the WMO State of the Global Climate flagship. It informs decisions on climate change mitigation, adaptation and risk management at regional level.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
A storm ocean wave crashes over the road and floods coastal houses.
Update

As climate change amplifies urban flooding, here’s how communities can become ‘sponge cities’

Across the continental U.S., intense single-day precipitation events are growing more frequent, fueled by warming air that can hold increasing levels of moisture.
Conversation Media Group, the
Man from South Korea walking through the streets waring a face mask for COVID-19 protection
Update

How to avoid the next pandemic

According to the authors, better management of three key aspects—international cooperation, isolation, and available technology—could have curtailed the COVID-19 disease outbreak in its initial stages.
Natural Hazards Center
Bookshelves in a library.
The DRR Knowledge Base
Explore the latest on disaster risk and resilience from around the world: news, research, policies and publications.

Subscribe to alerts

Get updates in your inbox

Contribute your content

The Knowledge Base is a collaborative effort of the DRR community, updated and reviewed daily by PreventionWeb editors.

Upload your content for review

Is this page useful?

Yes No
Report an issue on this page

Thank you. If you have 2 minutes, we would benefit from additional feedback (link opens in a new window).