From local resilience to systemic risk governance

Households can prepare for floods, but they cannot decide where development happens upstream, how regional power networks are protected, or whether capital keeps flowing into hazard-prone land. Writing for International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, Bapon Fakhruddin argues that where disaster impacts are felt should not be confused with who produces the risk. He separates risk creation, risk transmission and risk bearing, noting that those who benefit from a development decision are often not those who bear its consequences. His Local-to-Systemic Risk Governance framework proposes financed local resilience compacts, which pair local responsibility with real decision rights and predictable funding, alongside investment appraisals that make trade-offs explicit. Resilience is experienced locally, he concludes, but it is not produced locally alone.

UN calls for greater investment in housing resilience as homes account for 43% of reported disaster losses

Homes account for 43% of the direct economic disaster losses countries report through the Sendai Framework Monitor, and around half of everyone affected by disasters had their home damaged or destroyed. Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure modelling puts average annual losses to residential buildings from cyclones, floods, tsunamis and earthquakes at roughly US$228 billion, more than half of estimated losses across the world’s building stock from those hazards. Released for International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDRR’s message is that progress on cutting disaster deaths hasn’t been matched by progress on reducing the number of people affected or the economic cost. The UNDRR argues that this won’t change until homes get safer. The fix: risk-informed locations, enforced building standards, retrofits, and rebuilding to higher standards.

When El Niño hits home: Building household resilience ahead of a record-breaking climate event

As a very strong El Niño unfolds, raising the risk of severe weather into 2027, who ends up paying the disaster bill? Mostly households, argue the authors of a UN report. Post-Disaster Needs Assessments from 20 Asia-Pacific countries show that around 40% of disaster impacts fall on social and productive sectors such as housing, health, education and livelihoods. Forecasts now give at least six months’ lead time, but information only helps if families have the means to act on it. The authors set out three priorities for governments: turn forecasts into practical guidance, make home retrofits, insurance and other risk reduction affordable, and strengthen climate-responsive social protection.

Resilience starts at home: Building a safer future in Latin America and the Caribbean

With 81.2% of its population living in cities, Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the world’s most urbanised regions, and rapid, unplanned growth leaves many families building homes in places exposed to hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. The United Nations Development Programme shares three responses. In Havana, disaster risk was built into Old Havana’s housing strategy, alongside affordable designs that preserve heritage and use local materials. After Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica developed master plans for safer land use and trained local builders in resilient construction, while families received psychosocial support and help replacing lost documents. After the June 2026 earthquakes in Venezuela, engineers assessed nearly 1,000 structures to decide when families could safely return home.

Rethinking disaster reconstruction in Nepal: Building back for a changing climate

On 26 August 2026, a glacial lake outburst flood triggered by an avalanche on Mt Langtang Lirung swept through Nepal’s Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river valleys, killing more than 1,400 people. It was the third major flood to hit the region in just over a year. Kshitiz Pokharel asks whether reconstruction should simply restore what was lost or address the changing risks behind it. He argues for three principles: adaptation, with homes and public buildings on raised platforms, flood-resilient bridges and roads, and no-settlement zones near high-risk wetlands; accessibility, so warnings and support reach everyone; and acceptability, consulting communities before plans are finalised. With glaciers melting and extreme events becoming less predictable, past climate records are no longer a reliable guide to future risk.

Water reveals the limits of sustainable finance taxonomies

A taxonomy can help investors identify whether an activity is green, but it cannot determine whether anyone is able to pay for it. Writing for the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, Bapon Fakhruddin and Kristina Anguelova use water security to illustrate where sustainable finance classifications end—and where financial design must begin. Developing countries spend around US$164.6 billion each year on water, with approximately 91% coming from governments and state-owned enterprises and less than 2% from private sources. Projects such as flood protection and catchment restoration can generate significant public benefits without producing the revenue needed to repay private investors. Cape Town offers one example of how this gap can be addressed. Clearing invasive vegetation from seven priority catchments was estimated to cost one-tenth as much per unit as alternatives such as desalination. A R2.5 billion (South African rand) performance-based bond issued in 2026 also links part of investor returns to independently verified restoration outcomes. Where there is no commercial payer, public budgets and grants remain a legitimate and necessary source of finance.

Planning for the next disaster: Household preparedness in the Houston area

Most Houston-area residents feel ready for the next disaster, but levels of preparedness vary substantially by income. Using measures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Household Survey, the Kinder Institute assessed household preparedness in spring 2026 across Harris County and, for the first time, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties. The average resident has taken five of the ten preparedness actions FEMA tracks, such as signing up for weather alerts and insuring their property. Four in ten own a generator that can power their home through extended outages, but ownership varies sharply by neighbourhood and income. That matters in a city where millions lost power after Hurricane Beryl in 2024. Higher-earning households feel more prepared and take more preparedness actions, while nearly half of residents in households earning under US$25,000 a year said they would be not at all prepared or not too prepared if a disaster struck. The researchers point to community organisations to help lower-income residents prepare, alongside staying connected to alerts and local networks year-round.

World Risk Poll 2026: From alert to agency: What turns warnings into action

Four in five adults who experienced a disaster in the previous five years received at least one advance warning, but more than a third of those warned were unable to take any protective action. Drawing on more than 143,000 Gallup interviews across 140 countries and territories, Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s report examines exposure to disasters, access to warnings and the ability to act on them. Preparation at home makes a striking difference: 83% of warned adults with both a household disaster plan and a sense of personal agency took action, compared with just 27% of those with neither. Warning coverage reached 64% in low-income countries compared with 84% in upper-middle and high-income countries. At the regional level, Australia and New Zealand recorded the highest regional share of adults reporting disaster impacts, at 31%. The report calls for mobile-based warnings, stronger household preparedness and priority for highly exposed communities with poor warning access.

Strengthening climate resilience through social protection programs

When disaster strikes, the households most at risk are often those least able to absorb the shock. Adaptive social protection links social protection with disaster risk management and climate adaptation, building poor and vulnerable households’ capacity to anticipate, absorb and adapt to shocks so they don’t fall into, or become trapped in, poverty. This Asian Development Bank brief shows what that looks like in practice in Bangladesh, a low-lying deltaic country with 13% of its territory less than 2 metres above sea level. Reforms to its Employment Generation Program for the Poorest, a public works scheme supporting around 400,000 people, now match permitted works to each district’s dominant climate stress, align them with local disaster management plans, locate worksites within 3 km of homes so women can take part safely, and speed up wage payments. Community consultations surfaced barriers that desk reviews had missed. The lesson travels well: resilience can be built through existing national programmes rather than standalone interventions.

Perceiving protection: Public interpretation of institutions in managed flood settings

Why do some households prepare for floods while their neighbours, living behind the same levee, do not? This systematic review of 35 studies published between 2010 and 2024, covering levees, dams, reservoirs and drainage infrastructure across 21 countries, finds the answer often lies in how people see the institutions meant to protect them. Six dynamics emerge: infrastructure as a producer of risk, governance fragmentation and public confusion, preparedness as an interpretive practice, trust and the levee effect, fairness and timing in institutional response, and whether institutions communicate in ways people can recognise. The central finding is that preparedness is not driven solely by risk knowledge or hazard experience, but reflects how institutional action is seen, trusted or contested. For anyone designing flood protection, how it is perceived may matter as much as how well it performs.

19th Congress of the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS 2026)

Microbes rarely feature in disaster risk conversations, yet they underpin food security, carbon sequestration, ecosystem restoration and public health. The 19th IUMS Congress brings together scientists working across bacteriology, virology and mycology under the theme “Beyond the Microscope: AI & Innovation in Microbiology”. Alongside microbial genetics, synthetic biology and clinical science, the programme covers applied microbiology for environmental sustainability, with a strong emphasis on preserving ecosystems and oceans. Listed by the International Science Council, the congress also aims to widen participation from both low- and high-income countries. It sits at the edge of the DRR agenda but is worth following for anyone working where ecosystem health, biological hazards and resilience meet.

Date & location: 4 – 6 November 2026 | Lisbon, Portugal

World Tsunami Awareness Day 2026

In 2011, only 5 of roughly 2,900 elementary and junior-high students in Kamaishi, Japan, died when the Great East Japan tsunami struck, an outcome credited to years of tsunami education and regular drills. This year’s World Tsunami Awareness Day picks up the same thread under the theme “Be Tsunami Ready: Resilience starts with you”. Because waves can arrive before official warnings do, the campaign focuses on recognising natural warning signs, moving immediately to high ground, knowing evacuation routes, preparing household plans, and helping those who need extra support, including children, older people, persons with disabilities and tourists. Events are being held worldwide, and UNDRR is inviting organisations to share their own #GetToHighGround activities.

 Date & location: 5 November 2026 | Global

UN Climate Change Conference (COP31)

The world’s only multilateral decision-making forum on climate change will meet in Antalya. Türkiye’s Murat Kurum has been nominated as COP President, with Australia’s Chris Bowen serving as President of Negotiations. The conference follows October’s Pre-COP, which was hosted in the Pacific by Fiji, Tuvalu and Australia. Negotiators will focus on limiting warming to 1.5°C, helping vulnerable communities adapt and reaching net zero. Adaptation tracking will be under close scrutiny after COP30 in Belém adopted 59 indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation. Business leaders, scientists, Indigenous Peoples and civil society representatives will also join official delegations. Those following the conference remotely can access a daily schedule of events on the UNFCCC website.

Date & location: 9 – 20 November 2026 | Antalya, Türkiye

OpenET Applications Conference 2026

How much water is actually leaving fields, forests and cities through evapotranspiration? OpenET uses satellite data to answer that question at field scale, and this conference brings its user community together with the science and technical teams to share how the data is being put to work. Under the theme “Science & Innovation to Support Sound Water Management”, sessions run across five tracks: accuracy, natural and urban landscapes, regional management, drought and conservation, and on-farm management. The goals are to share lessons across regions and sectors, gather feedback on what users need from the data, and spark new partnerships. Registration details are available on the conference website.

Date & location: 17 – 18 November 2026 | Hyatt Regency, Salt Lake City, USA

Reducing Drought Risk through Prevention, Early Warning and Anticipatory Action

With El Niño-related drought conditions adding pressure on water security, livelihoods and ecosystems, this UNDRR event in Abu Dhabi, held during the 2026 UN Water Conference, looks at how prevention, early warning and anticipatory action can reduce drought risk and accelerate progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6. It draws on the Sendai Framework and the 2026 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, which explores the links between drought, floods and food systems. Discussion will centre on partnerships between governments, UN entities, scientific institutions and development partners to strengthen risk-informed water management and drought preparedness. Ministerial representation and high-level participation are expected.

Date & location: 9 December 2026 | ADNEC Centre, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

A data engineering approach to tracking global climate resilience

What counts as a climate-resilient road? One country might build to withstand a 1-in-50-year flood, another a 1-in-100-year flood, and both report against the same indicator. COP30 in Belém adopted 59 indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation. Bapon Fakhruddin of the Green Climate Fund and Matti Heikkurinen of CODATA warn that figures which look comparable often are not. Their answer is not a single global standard but the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework, which acts as a translator between existing sectoral standards, so communities need not change how they collect data. Building it in from the outset costs far less than retrofitting it and decides whether the Global Stocktake measures genuine progress or merely records the attempt to describe it.

Energy strategy: The path for a prosperous, sustainable future

New Zealand’s electricity supply still turns on how much rain reaches a handful of South Island hydro lakes, and dry years keep exposing how little affordable firming sits behind them. Dr Tim Fisher, Group Managing Director of Tonkin + Taylor, argues the country lacks an energy strategy durable enough to survive successive electoral cycles. The cost is mounting: electricity is 65% more expensive than when the retail market opened in 1999, and project delays have cost NZ$11.8 billion over 25 years. Getting it right could add NZ$22 billion a year to GDP by 2035. Fisher calls for distributed renewable generation, a mandatory firming and flexibility market, gas transition planning, and security of supply that accounts for natural hazards and ageing grid assets.

Climate change is driving widespread marine heat waves across the globe

The largest marine heatwave currently on record covers 63 million square kilometres of the Pacific, roughly 17% of the world’s ocean surface, and climate change is responsible for an estimated 86% of it. It is far from alone. Climate Central finds every major ocean basin running unusually warm: 82.9% of the Mediterranean is under marine heatwave conditions, with parts of the western basin 5-6°C above normal. Those conditions also extend across 39.7% of the Gulf of Mexico, 33% of the Indian Ocean and 23.3% of the Atlantic. Some North Pacific hotspots have now persisted beyond 180 consecutive days. Marine heatwaves are no longer discrete events to be waited out, but a background condition the ocean is increasingly held in.

Droughts: Europe’s economy is paying the price, €439 billion already lost while the damage almost doubles with +2°C

Drought is usually costed as an agricultural problem. Research from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) and Politecnico di Milano suggests that is where the damage starts, not where it ends. The 2015-2018 European drought cost €439 billion, cutting EU-27 and UK GDP per capita growth by 2.72 percentage points, reducing investment by over 12% and leaving 5.8 million jobs uncreated. Critically, the largest losses accumulated over the following six years: agriculture absorbs the initial hit but recovers within a couple of years, while manufacturing and construction keep losing ground long afterwards. At 2°C of warming the same event would cost close to €760 billion, with Spain’s GDP loss rising from 2.2 to 7.7 percentage points.

Japan’s earthquake shows extreme heat can turn one disaster into two

When an earthquake struck Kumamoto in late July, the response unfolded in temperatures that climbed into the high 30s and, in places, hit 40°C for the first time on record. At least 38 people died in the quake; some 7,000 sheltered across 130 evacuation centres with water and power disrupted, and one older woman died of heatstroke while sheltering in her car. Glenn McGregor argues this is a compound event, in which heat acts as a disaster risk multiplier, raising heatstroke risk among evacuees while degrading responders’ physical performance. The comparison is instructive: the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake struck in mild April conditions. The climate a disaster lands in is becoming as consequential as the hazard itself.

Acting before the crisis: The Colombian Red Cross is combining science and anticipation in its response to the El Niño phenomenon

Colombia’s first fully implemented Early Action Protocol did not wait for the drought to arrive. When forecasts from national hydrology and meteorology institute IDEAM showed a greater than 50% probability of below-normal rainfall from June to August, and a Standardised Precipitation Index at or below -1.4, the trigger was met. The Colombian Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released funds ahead of impact. Some 2,400 people across Tolima and Cesar are being reached: water-retention soil additives for 600 people to stretch irrigation, livestock supplements to prevent deaths during pasture shortages, cash transfers for 900 people without bank accounts, and a community water treatment plant producing 30,000 litres a day. Financed through the anticipatory pillar of the IFRC’s Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF), it shows drought response can be pre-agreed and science triggered.

A Livable Future: Protecting Jobs and Growth from Extreme Heat in South Asia’s Cities

In South Asia’s cities the night no longer brings relief: urban areas can run up to 10°C hotter after dark than the countryside around them. Covering six countries from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, this World Bank report finds heat already costs the region the equivalent of 31 million full-time jobs per year. Without adaptation, GDP could be around 7% smaller by 2050, and by 2070 an estimated 520 million people may face at least one month annually of dangerous heat. Fifteen priority interventions are identified across three pillars — infrastructure, policy and private capital — with Ahmedabad’s heat action plan cited as a proven model that cut peak-heat mortality by 47%. The report makes a compelling case that investment in heat adaptation is as much a fiscal priority as a humanitarian one.

The 2025 small island developing states report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: building resilience in the face of rising heat

Small island developing states (SIDS) contribute less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions and are among the first to pay for them. Tracking 28 indicators across health impacts, adaptation, mitigation, finance and public engagement, this Lancet Countdown report compares recent exposure with the 2000-09 baseline. Between 2015 and 2024, infants across SIDS were exposed to seven times more heatwave days than that baseline, and older adults five times more. In 2024 alone, 4.4 billion potential work hours were lost to heat. Drought and heat together contributed to food insecurity for around 2.7 million people across 26 SIDS, compounding risks from vector-borne disease and sea-level rise. Adaptation and climate finance remain far short of what that exposure warrants, and the report argues for health-centred resilience as the organising principle for both.

Heat-Resilient Infrastructure: Lessons from Emerging Global Experience

Heatwaves already inflict an estimated US$23.9 billion in annual losses on critical infrastructure globally, and the remedy is not simply more concrete. This multi-author issue gathers field experience, policy perspectives and community voices on building heat resilience into infrastructure and urban systems, with a focus on South Asia. Contributors examine the role of water systems in heat action plans, the cooling potential of urban tree cover and green-blue infrastructure, and thermally comfortable housing design for low-income communities. A review of more than 250 city-level heat action plans across India illustrates both rapid progress and significant implementation gaps. The issue’s central argument is that heat resilience cannot be achieved through infrastructure investment alone: it requires governance reform, sustained finance and genuine engagement with the communities most at risk.

Evaluating the implementation and effectiveness of heat action plans

Cities are writing heat action plans faster than anyone can establish whether they work. Reviewing 34 subnational heat action plans worldwide, this Global Disaster Preparedness Center study finds most handle emergency preparedness, early warning and public health interventions competently, but often lack clear indicators to measure effectiveness and long-term outcomes. Governance, stakeholder coordination, sustainable funding and data availability emerge as the factors separating plans that function from plans that merely exist. To close the measurement gap, the authors developed the Heat Action Plan Implementation and Effectiveness (HAPIE) Tool, which helps local governments define goals, monitor progress and evaluate outcomes using practical, context-specific indicators. Piloted in Seattle, Vienna, Cape Town and Nepalgunj, it offers a route to embedding continuous evaluation in heat resilience planning rather than treating publication as the finish line.

Land-use and atmospheric shifts jointly amplify U.S. drought-driven crop losses

Two things determine how badly a drought hits a harvest: the weather, and what has been planted in its path. Using an integrated multi-scale, multi-sector modelling framework across the contiguous United States, researchers project drought-driven production losses through 2055 rising by almost 60% for corn and 135% for soybean against historical levels. The striking finding is that land-use and land-cover change operates as a driver of comparable magnitude to atmospheric change itself, with the sharpest amplification occurring where cropland expansion overlaps drought-prone regions such as the Great Plains. The implication is uncomfortable but useful: a meaningful share of future drought loss is being locked in right now by land-use decisions, which also means a meaningful share of it remains avoidable.

16th Annual Conference of the International Society for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRiM 2026)

Now in its 16th year, IDRiM brings its annual conference to Bali under the theme “Resilient Cities in Multi-Hazard Crises: Bridging Innovation, Implementation Science, and Grassroots Action”. Hosted by the Resilience Development Initiative and the Research Center for Disaster Mitigation at Institut Teknologi Bandung, it draws academics, practitioners, policymakers and community leaders together around urban resilience where several hazards arrive at once. The emphasis on implementation science and grassroots action speaks directly to the gap between what is known about risk and what actually gets built.

Date & location: 5 – 9 September 2026 | Bali, Indonesia

Global Cooling Pledge Assembly 2026

Launched at COP28, the Global Cooling Pledge commits signatories to a triple strategy of passive cooling, super-efficient technologies and climate-friendly refrigerants, targeting a 68% cut in sector emissions by 2050. The Cool Coalition, an initiative of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), hosts the assembly, bringing signatory countries, cities, industry and development finance institutions together to turn that commitment into deployment. Sessions cover national cooling policy, urban heat resilience for cities and subnational governments, and the strategic direction of the Intergovernmental Committee on Cooling, with outcomes intended to shape the global cooling agenda heading into COP31. Access to cooling is the other half of the heat exposure story.

Date & location: 15 – 18 September 2026 | PARKROYAL on Beach Road, Singapore

UNDRR Masterclass series: AI for Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems

Delivered by the Global Education and Training Institute of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) with Google, this three-part online series looks at where AI is genuinely useful in early warning. The sessions cover AI-driven flood prediction (16 September), advances in weather prediction (23 September), and Earth science and impact assessment (30 September). Aimed at governments and humanitarian organisations strengthening early warning and anticipatory action programmes, it was capped at 1,000 participants on a first-come basis, with a certificate for those attending all three sessions. Registration has now closed, but the series is worth noting for anyone tracking where AI is being put to practical use in early warning.

Online registration (now closed): https://undrr.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_buu2Xn0dQ8aSNE6Dc5AOEg

Date & location: 16, 23 & 30 September 2026 | Online

Pacific Symposium on Loss and Damage: Understanding Non-economic Losses

Some losses never reach a balance sheet: language, cultural heritage, sense of place, the ties that hold a community together. This symposium focuses on non-economic loss and damage across the Pacific, and on the harder question of measuring it well enough to inform policy and finance. UNDRR’s Pacific sub-regional office leads it alongside the Pacific Community, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the Santiago Network and UN partners. Together they work with governments, regional agencies, civil society, Indigenous Peoples and community leaders to strengthen data systems, policy frameworks and institutional capacity. Attendance is by invitation, but the outputs will be worth following.

Date & location: 28 – 29 September 2026 | Tanoa International Hotel, Nadi, Fiji

Global Heat Forum: Unlocking Solutions to Scale Heat Resilience

The Global Heat Health Information Network runs the forum with support from the World Meteorological Organization, gathering more than 500 policymakers, scientists, funders, community leaders and private sector representatives around a single question: how to scale what already works. The programme spans plenaries, workshops and field visits, with the stated aim of moving past documenting the problem to building an investable roadmap for heat resilience. Pre-registration is open on a rolling basis, and plenaries will be live streamed for those unable to travel.

Date & location: 6 – 9 October 2026 | Bangkok, Thailand + online

Release of the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) Version 1.1

The Committee on Data (CODATA) has released Version 1.1 of the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF), a practical framework that enables organisations across sectors to share and combine data without manual translation. Resulting from two years of implementation and development, including a disaster preparedness initiative in Malawi and implementation in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) climate adaptation project (Climate-Adapt4EOSC), the release strengthens FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data sharing. New features include standardised core data fields, improved packaging tools, and a developer toolkit, with future updates planned to enhance data quality, semantic mapping, and support for complex data and software resources.

Climate risk and disclosure in ports: Lessons from New Zealand and Australia

Climate risk and disclosure in ports: Lessons from New Zealand and Australia
Ports sit on the front line of climate risk, and increasingly on the front line of climate disclosure too. Drawing on a webinar with Lyttelton Port Company, Flinders Port Holdings and Tonkin + Taylor, this article shows how leading ports are turning mandatory climate reporting from a compliance chore into a strategic advantage: sharpening governance, informing investment decisions and building resilience across operations. As reporting regimes mature on both sides of the Tasman, the ports getting ahead are the ones treating disclosure as navigation, not paperwork.
Watch the webinar

Climate adaptation, governance gaps and the future of Europe’s coastal fisheries

The fish are moving; the rules aren’t keeping up. As warming waters push species into new territories, Europe’s fisheries governance, built for a stable ocean, is struggling to adapt. Using the North Sea brown shrimp fishery as a case study, this article makes the case for adaptive governance and climate services such as early warning systems and decision-support tools, so coastal communities can manage change proactively rather than react to it.

Mapping Africa’s changing coastline

Sea-level rise is not uniform, and for Africa’s coastal communities the local details matter. A new interactive platform combines more than a century of data with future climate projections to show how land subsidence, ocean warming and melting ice sheets shape flood risk from one location to the next. The aim is to give governments the site-specific evidence to decide where to strengthen defences, where to build resilience, and where managed relocation may be the wiser path.

Ocean warming, marine heatwaves and sea-level rise pose increasing risk in South-West Pacific region

2025 was the South-West Pacific’s second warmest year on record (behind 2024), and the ocean is bearing the brunt. A new World Meteorological Organization report documents widespread marine heatwaves driving coral bleaching, fisheries disruption and biodiversity loss, alongside the destruction wrought in Indonesia and Malaysia by Cyclone Senyar. Most striking of all: Indonesia’s last tropical glacier could vanish by 2027. The report calls for urgent strengthening of early warning systems, climate services and coordinated adaptation across the region.

Opinion: Financing Early Warning Systems That Deliver and Endure

Drawing on a 2026 independent evaluation of the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) approach to and Portfolio of Climate Information and Early Warning System Interventions, the authors argue that investment scale alone does not guarantee impact. The GCF is the world’s largest financier of climate information and early warning systems, committing close to two billion US dollars across more than 140 projects in over 100 countries, yet the evaluation finds these investments have grown in isolation, without a unifying framework. The authors highlight that critical gaps remain in decisive stages of system performance, including gaps in communication channels, user-centred design, tailored risk based information, and local preparedness capacity. They call for a shift toward blended finance models, integrated system design, and measuring real-world capability rather than simple coverage.

Mainstreaming Disaster Resilience into Infrastructure Projects

When roads, railways and power networks fail in disasters, the losses ripple across entire economies, and much of that damage is avoidable. Focusing on India’s roads, railways and power sectors, this CDRI report pinpoints where policy, project design, financing and risk assessment fall short. The fixes are practical: embed resilience across the whole infrastructure lifecycle, from planning and procurement through to operation, assess hazards up front, monitor assets in real time using digital systems, and back it all with dedicated financing, insurance and risk-transfer options. The result is a roadmap for reducing economic losses and keeping essential services running, so that future infrastructure keeps standing, and keeps serving, in a changing climate.

Small but mighty — climate resilience in Europe’s small municipalities

Around 40% of the EU’s population lives in municipalities of fewer than 20,000 people, communities that also support much of Europe’s agricultural production and ecosystem services. Yet only 16% of these small municipalities have adaptation plans, compared with 28% of larger ones. This European Environment Agency briefing shows how small towns are punching above their weight through local leadership, partnerships and folding adaptation into plans, budgets and policy, even as limited funding, staffing, technical expertise and access to climate data hold many back. The call is for stronger national and EU support, through funding, knowledge-sharing and capacity building, so no region is left behind.

Physical Vulnerability of The Gambia’s Coastline in the Context of Climate Change

The Gambia’s entire 80 km coastline is under pressure, but some stretches are far more exposed than others. With rising seas, erosion and flooding threatening communities, ecosystems and key industries such as tourism, agriculture and fisheries, knowing where to act first matters. Using the Coastal Vulnerability Index, this study pinpoints the hotspots, from Buniadu Point to Barra and Banjul to Cape Point, where erosion, low-lying terrain and fragile geology converge. The prescription is integrated coastal management: nature-based solutions such as mangrove and wetland restoration, flood-resistant infrastructure, improved drainage, land-use planning and managed retreat from the highest-risk areas, backed by coordinated action across government, communities and regional partners.

The role of the spatial scale in flood hazard and risk mapping for informing land-use planning: Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand

Does the scale of a flood map change the decisions it supports? This Aotearoa New Zealand study says yes: regional maps work well for strategic planning and flagging broad areas of concern, but local planning and development decisions demand finer-scale mapping. With extreme rainfall intensifying and development continuing in flood-prone areas, the stakes are rising. The catch is consistency — approaches differ between regions, and there is no clear national guidance on how flood hazard and risk information should be applied in planning, producing uneven outcomes. The authors call for consistent national standards, greater transparency about the limits of each mapping scale, and closer collaboration between planners, scientists and decision-makers.

OntoPortal Workshop 2026 Announced

The OntoPortal Alliance, who develop and maintain open-source ontology repositories that help scientists across disciplines share and reuse structured, machine-readable knowledge, announces its fifth annual gathering in Paris. A free public online session on 23 September features a platform introduction, panel discussion, hands-on tutorial, and a Q&A session. A valuable opportunity for both newcomers and practitioners to explore and discover how ontology tools can improve data interoperability, hear from community members, and discuss future directions.

Online registration: https://zfrmz.eu/bAXGoKYQgWZwTw27fEPr

Online date & location: 23 September 2026 | Zoom (online)

Pacific Webinar on the Global Disaster-Related Statistics Framework (G-DRSF)

Endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2026, the Global Disaster-Related Statistics Framework (G-DRSF) offers countries a common foundation for producing, sharing, and using disaster-related data, from loss and damage tracking to Sendai Framework monitoring and risk-informed planning. This webinar introduces the framework and explores what it means in practice for Pacific countries, where data gaps and the growing impacts of climate-related disasters make robust statistical systems especially critical.

Bringing together regional partners and country representatives, the session will feature presentations, a Pacific country panel, and an interactive Q&A, with a focus on how the G-DRSF can strengthen national statistical systems and support regional collaboration going forward.

Date & location: 4 August 2026 | Online

2026 Int’l Symposium on Construction and Disaster Management (CADM 2026)

The International Symposium on Construction and Disaster Management returns this August in Kunming, China, bringing together researchers and practitioners to share the latest findings at the intersection of construction and disaster management. For those working on disaster-resilient infrastructure, risk-informed building practices, and post-disaster reconstruction, CADM 2026 offers a focused forum to exchange methods, results, and emerging approaches.

Date & location: 10 – 12 August 2026 | Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

UNCCD COP17          

Up to 40% of the world’s land is degraded, affecting 3.2 billion people, and this August, the world’s governments will gather in Mongolia to respond. The 17th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) brings together delegates from 197 Parties, heads of state, scientists, and civil society to advance action on desertification, land degradation, and drought: three interconnected drivers of disaster.

As the first of the three Rio Convention COPs in 2026, COP17 is expected to set the tone for global ambition on land, climate, and biodiversity this year. For DRR practitioners, it is a critical event to follow closely.

Date & location: 17 – 28 August 2026 | Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

World Water Week 2026 

Organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), World Water Week 2026 brings together policymakers, practitioners, and researchers under the theme “Water for People and Progress” to advance equitable, climate-resilient water solutions. The programme will address water security, sanitation, and health, with a particular focus on marginalised communities and the intersections of water, gender, and climate change. For those working in disaster risk reduction, where floods, droughts, and water insecurity sit at the heart of community resilience, this is a key event to follow.

Date & location: 23 – 27 August 2026 | Stockholm, Sweden and Online

Creating Effective Warnings For All Workshops 2026

Three focused workshops at University College London are taking place this September. Spanning climate risk communication, health impacts, and community-inclusive approaches, the series covers some of the most pressing challenges in translating warnings into protective action.

The three workshops are:

• 2 September – Warnings to Action: Aligning Climate Risk Alerts with Climate Change Policy
• 3 September – Warnings for Health in an Era of Rapid Climate Change
• 4 September – Knowing Risk: Co-developing Community-Inclusive Early Warning Systems (co-run with the University of Glasgow and Malawi University of Science and Technology).

Date & location: 2 – 4 September 2026 | University College London, UK