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Disaster risk solutions

Scalable and replicable success stories to prevent disasters.

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A catalogue of evidence-based practices to reduce disaster risk.

Concrete innovations, inventions, and strategies are reducing the impacts of disasters worldwide. These practical success stories and proven strategies address various aspects of disaster risk.

The documented successes, measurable achievements, avoided disasters, and tangible outcomes serve as lessons for those planning actions to enhance resilience, reduce vulnerability, and protect communities from the adverse effects of disasters.

The stories you will find below encompass a wide range of practical DRR measures, including early warning systems, community-based initiatives, green and grey infrastructure improvements, policy implementations, and innovative technologies that have been applied and proven effective in real-world scenarios.

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Satellite infrared image Hurricane Melissa
Update
Ensuring the future: Lessons from Hurricane Melissa & Jamaica’s disaster vulnerability reduction efforts

The payout from Jamaica’s Catastrophe Bond, triggered by Hurricane Melissa, provided crucial immediate financial relief, underscoring the vital role of sovereign risk-financing tools.

World Bank, the
A woman fetches water from a nearly dry well at Shahapur Taluka, Maharashtra, India
Update
Community rain monitoring helps disaster preparedness

This publication discusses how community-based rain monitoring in India enhances disaster preparedness by enabling local collection and use of rainfall data to improve early warning systems and community resilience to extreme weather and flooding.

Mongabay
Case study
Ghana
Nature-based solutions for reducing flood risk: A case study in South Tongu district, Ghana
Flooding poses a significant threat to socio-economic and ecological systems in Ghana. The project aims to assess the effectiveness and practicality of implementing Nature-Based Solutions for flood risk management in South Tongu district.
  • Nature-based Solutions Platform (Witteveen+Bos)
Dead corn under an orange sky, capturing the eerie silence of a once thriving agriculture crippled by climate change.
Research briefs
How satellite data helped avoid hunger from drought

Satellites detecting anomalies of the spectral reflectance of crops in Uganda successfully foretold imminent crop failure and automatically triggered timely governmental disaster relief.

Eos - AGU
Research briefs
Two simple modifications cool Kenyan homes and keep mosquitoes out

Researchers in Kenya have identified two low-cost solutions that tackle the twin challenges of rising temperatures and malaria transmission.

PhysOrg, Omicron Technology Ltd
Close-up on a few desert locusts on corn plants.
Research briefs
Locust swarms destroy crops — scientists found a way to stop it

Study believed to be the first to test this method in real-world farming conditions; soil amendments resulted in fewer locusts, less damage and a doubled crop yield.

Arizona State University
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Coloured houses on a windy day
Disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management
The policy objective of anticipating and reducing risk is called disaster risk reduction (DRR). Disaster risk management (DRM) can be thought of as the implementation of DRR, since it describes the actions that aim to achieve the objective of reducing risk.

Featured stories

Houses that can float could protect vulnerable people from flooding

This concept retrofits houses with flotation devices and tethers them to poles - allowing the house to rise with floodwaters and descend to their foundations when the flood subsides.

Can wildfire prevention offer sustainable business opportunities?

Because of climate change, wildfires are becoming more intense and frequent. Prevention measures often come with a hefty price tag. Across Europe, fire-smart solutions make wildfire prevention more sustainable, by offering ecological, economic and social benefits.

Rain-related early warning in Japan

“The risk is imminent” translates as KiKIKURU in Japanese. It’s the name of an innovative early warning system for rain-related hazards in Japan. KIKIKURU was developed by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The system provides real-time hazard updates using a high spatial resolution of 1 km.

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Developing local-level solutions

Is your city resilient? Does its resilience help its citizens to prosper and flourish? Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) is a unique cross-stakeholder initiative for improving local resilience. See how cities around the world build their capacities to tackle disasters.

MCR2030 is a place where cities can find guidance and support to enhance understanding on risk reduction and resilience, to improve strategic planning to reduce risk and build resilience, and to take actions and progress along the resilience roadmap.

See below news from cities that have taken the leap to reduce disaster risk.

Join MCR2030