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Disaster losses

Disaster losses encompass human, economic, non-economic, and environmental costs of disasters. This theme covers quantified direct and indirect losses.

This theme includes the assessment, documentation, and analysis of both immediate and long-term consequences resulting from disasters. It addresses direct physical damage to infrastructure, indirect economic losses, and quantified social ramifications on affected populations (non-economic costs). It also includes the methodologies and technologies used to measure and record these impacts, the policies and practices aimed at mitigating and compensating for losses, as well as trends of future losses.

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Small-scale and slow-onset disasters—like local floods, landslides, and droughts—are often ignored in official statistics, even though their combined impact can be just as damaging as large-scale disasters.

Latest Disaster losses additions in the Knowledge Base

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Unequal displacement risk and multidimensional well-being losses after the 2017 coastal El Niño in Peru: A mixed-methods analysis thumbnail
Documents and publications
Unequal displacement risk and multidimensional well-being losses after the 2017 coastal El Niño in Peru: A mixed-methods analysis

This study examines unequal housing-driven displacement and well-being after Peru’s 2017 Coastal El Niño floods, finding vulnerable households faced greater risk and persistent hardship, while social ties aided coping.

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (Elsevier)
Cover
Documents and publications
Cyclone-induced economic and non-economic loss and damage in coastal Bangladesh: A geospatial comparison of Kalapara and Dumki using an Integrated Loss and Damage Index

This study provides a comparative evaluation of cyclone-induced loss and damage (L&D) in two distinct upazilas of Patuakhali District, Bangladesh: the highly exposed coastal zone of Kalapara and the inland Dumki.

International Journal of Disaster Studies and Climate Resilience (IJDSCR)
Climate India 2026: An assessment of extreme weather events thumbnail
Documents and publications
Climate India 2026: An assessment of extreme weather events, January–September

This report tracks extreme weather in India from January to September 2026, finding events on 251 of 273 days and 3,220 deaths. It records losses to crops, homes and livestock and urges a shift from disaster response to risk reduction and resilience.

Centre for Science and Environment
Research briefs
US wildfire damage is on pace to triple by mid‑century, but there are affordable ways to lower the risk

As temperatures rise and development expands, the number of homes and other structures damaged or destroyed by wildfires across the U.S. is on pace to triple by mid-century, my colleagues and I found in a study published.

Conversation Media Group, the
Update
Wildfires could cost Canada billions over the coming century

Smoky summers are now the norm in Canada. Over the past summer, wildfires burned approximately 4.5 million hectares, more than 33,750 people were evacuated and millions were exposed to hazardous air pollutants.

Conversation Media Group, the
Update
The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage provisionally sets aside USD 21.6 million for Nepal, following catastrophic Bhote Khosi flash floods

The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage provisionally sets aside USD 21.6 million for Nepal, following catastrophic Bhote Khosi flash floods

The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage
Dramatic skyline of a Copenhagen factory with smoke and wind turbines at sunset.
Research briefs
Fossil-fueled warming drives surge in European heat deaths

Heat-related deaths in Europe’s urban areas exceeded 50,000 in the summer of 2026. More than 32,000 of those deaths were attributable to human-caused global warming, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, according to studies published in Nature Health.

Inside Climate News
Update
France's summer wildfires could cost insurers up to 563 mln euros

Wildfires that swept through France this summer resulted in around 22,500 insurance claims, with total losses estimated at up to 563 million euros ($634 million), the federation of insurers said on Friday.

France 24
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