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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.

aerial view of Dubai
Update

The weather experiment that really flooded Dubai

A reckless experiment in Earth’s atmosphere caused a desert metropolis to flood. That was the story last week when more than a year’s worth of rain fell in a day on the Arabian Peninsula, one of the world’s driest regions.
Conversation Media Group, the
School girls walking in a road in Bangladesh
Update

Bangladesh: extreme heat closes all schools and forces 33 million children out of classrooms

Extreme heat has forced the closure of all schools in Bangladesh this week, impacting 33 million children, as temperatures soared to 42°C (108 F), 16 degrees more than the annual average.
Save the Children International
Nepal earthquake 2015 damaged buildings
Update

Quakes do not kill people, bad buildings do

Across the Asia Pacific, region infrastructure and homes are rising up in seismically sensitive areas with governments seemingly reluctant to enforce safety codes for fear of slowing down development activity.
Science and Development Network
Danger - coastal ersion
Research briefs

How saving island life can sink the island

Researchers in North Carolina have created a coastal evolution model to analyze how coastal management activities on barrier islands, meant to adapt to sea-level rise, interact with natural processes that would otherwise keep barrier islands above water.
Duke University
Cover
Documents and publications

Scaling up anticipatory actions for food security: Anticipatory action year in focus 2023

This report provides an overview of WFP's progress in scaling up its Anticipatory Action (AA) operations, from covering 3.2 million people in 28 countries in 2022 to 4.1 million people in 36 countries in 2023.
Iceberg with arch
Research briefs

West Antarctica’s ice sheet was smaller thousands of years ago – here’s why this matters today

A key uncertainty in how much and how fast the seas will rise lies in whether currently “stable” parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet can become “unstable”. One such region is West Antarctica’s Siple Coast.
Conversation Media Group, the
A woman being wheeled in a wheelchair at the 7th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, 27 May 2022, Bali, Indonesia
Research briefs

Marginalized communities develop 'disaster subculture' when living through extreme climate events, study finds

Locations around the globe are experiencing climate disasters on a regular basis. But some of the most marginalized populations experience disasters so often it has come to be normalized.
University of Kansas
The ruined remains of a building after an earthquake
Research briefs

Scientists trigger mini-earthquakes in the lab

By studying a miniature version of the ground in the lab, scientists at the UvA Institute of Physics have demonstrated how earthquakes and landslides can be triggered by a small external shock wave.
The University of Amsterdam
Repairs to an active landslide on U.S. Route 101 in 2021
Research briefs

A million years without a megaslide

A new study goes deep into the Gulf of Alaska to examine the sixth-largest underwater landslide and investigate why a similar event hasn’t happened since.
Eos - AGU
Cover
Documents and publications

European state of the climate 2023

The report provides descriptions and analysis of climate conditions and variations from across the Earth system, key events and their impacts, and a discussion of climate policy and action with a focus on human health.
Bookshelves in a library.
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