According to several reviews, flood protection infrastructure alone does not mitigate flood risk. Unquestioning faith in it can actually deter risk reduction by causing governments to allocate large sums of recovery funding to construct more protective infrastructure without asking why there was failure in the first place.
Institute for Social and Environmental Transition - International
A new study finds that disasters attributed to other community members — like contagious epidemics — weakened cooperation, increased distrust and led to a long-term reduction in organization building. By contrast, disasters attributed to an act of nature evoked a sense of shared fate that fostered cooperation.
A recent study warns that a failure to properly account for all the deaths related to the 2017 storm and the possible dismantling of the territory's data collection services might affect the island's current chance of recovery, as well as its ability to respond to future emergencies.
While cities around the world are facing increased exposure to weather-related risks and hazards, a new study found that most of the coastal communities in the U.S. do not have an overarching strategy for building urban disaster resilience and lack coordination between multiple urban systems, including land use activities, natural environments and public infrastructure investments, particularly in Texas.
In 2004, a tsunami devastated much of the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh. Research found that reconstruction in the coastal zone has unintentionally exacerbated this segregation: now many lower-income newcomers rent rebuilt houses that higher-income tsunami survivors do not wish to occupy.
A new report details the reconstruction of Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, following the 2010-11 earthquake series. The document examines the types of structural systems used during the reconstruction of the city, and some of the technical, sociological and political choices associated with those decisions.
According to a new report, the academic biomedical research community in the United States needs to improve its mitigation and recovery from the impacts of disasters. The consequences of recent disasters amount to annual costs of $27 billion. The report calls for mandatory implementation of disaster resilience education, and provides steps to help bolster resilience.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The
The US Geological Survey predicts that more than 2.5 million people will die from earthquakes this century. Landslides and other mass movements, such as rockfalls, are an important cause of earthquake fatalities. Research now shows deforestation may inadvertently increase rockfall hazard by removing the natural vegetative barrier that previously impeded boulder travel.
Recovering from a traumatic event for some can mean finding a new appreciation of life – for others it is a slow process fraught with negativity. 'Having more close emotional ties is generally related to better mental health and personal wellbeing several years after a disaster. Involvement in local community groups and organisations is also associated with more positive outcomes,' says Associate Professor Gibbs, from the Centre of Health Equity, one of the chief investigators on the Beyond Bushfires project..,
Much—perhaps too much—has been made of Filipino resiliency. While government programs are important for redrawing the conditions under which they labor, their success hinge precisely on people’s ability to respond to and recuperate from their misfortune.