Author Archives: codata_blog

September 2026: Publications in the Data Science Journal

Title: What Do We Mean by ‘Version’? Actionable Guidelines for the Versioning of Data
Author: Jens Klump, Lesley Wyborn, Mingfang Wu, Dorothea Strecker, Heinz Pampel, Laura Rothfritz
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-037

Title: Toward a Standardized Framework for Benthic Mapping Data and Metadata Integration in Florida
Author: Anna E. Braswell, Vincent Lecours, Xiaohui Qiao, Ana Carolina Peralta Brichtova, Steven D. Meyers, Frank E. Muller-Karger, Brad E. Rosenheim, Brian K. Walker, Gary A. Zarillo, René Baumstark, Yonggang Liu, Dave Reed, Sean Beckwith, John M. Jaeger
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-036

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: September 2026 Edition

Nepal floods: how measuring snow in the Himalayas could help avoid future disasters

The August 2026 glacial flood that killed more than 1,000 people on the Nepal–Tibet border has renewed urgent calls to close a critical knowledge gap: scientists still do not know precisely how much water the Himalayas hold, or how fast that is changing. Home to nearly 90,000 glaciers sustaining ten major river systems, the region underpins the food, energy and water security of six nations. New measurement techniques, including airborne glacier surveys and satellite radar measurements, are emerging, but deployment remains too slow and too sparse. Researchers argue this must be treated with the urgency of a public emergency, with scientific innovation matched by coordinated monitoring networks, cross-border data sharing, and Indigenous knowledge.

Water investments, capital mobilisation, and national water compacts

Capital for water investment exists; the challenge is creating the conditions to deploy it well. Speaking to The Water Diplomat, Dr Bapon Fakhruddin of the Green Climate Fund and Sarah Nedolast of the World Bank’s Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership argue the real bottleneck is alignment between policy, regulation and financing, and turning national plans into bankable projects. Too often the same projects are funded repeatedly without shifting the paradigm. Nedolast notes only 70% of public water funding gets spent, so building skills and preparing projects must come first. National Water Compacts show countries are committed to this. Fakhruddin sees grounds for optimism: countries are now asking about blended finance, which was not happening five years ago.

Rising sea levels could cost Australians at least $855 billion by 2100

Rising sea levels and storm surges could inflict A$855 billion in economic losses across Australia by 2100, according to landmark research from the University of Melbourne and Australian National University published in Nature Scientific Reports. Under a moderate-emissions scenario, nearly 270,000 properties and two million hectares of land are at risk, with Queensland, Western Australia, and Victoria bearing the heaviest losses. The Gold Coast alone faces A$84.4 billion in projected damages. Critically, these figures are conservative: rapid ice sheet collapse and erosion losses are excluded entirely. Researchers warn that the cheapest option available now is straightforward: stop building in the highest-risk zones.

Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) Version 1.1 Now Final

When questions span multiple disciplines, domain-specific standards fall short of what is needed for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data exchange. The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) addresses this by establishing a common language for cross-domain metadata exchange, built on existing standards and complementing, rather than replacing, those already in use.

After the initial release of the CDIF version 1.1 Profiles in June, and a subsequent round of testing and implementation, they have now been finalised. The release will henceforth be stable, with all further issues and features addressed in subsequent versions. It is available at https://book.cdif.org/ and https://github.com/Cross-Domain-Interoperability-Framework.

Smarter, faster, better: Building New Zealand’s energy future

New Zealand’s energy infrastructure pipeline is growing, but delivery remains too slow and costly. Glen Nicholson, Chris Perks and James Russell of Tonkin + Taylor argue the problem is method, not volume: teams repeatedly recreate designs and specifications while constructors join too late, surfacing access and supply-chain problems at their most expensive.

The authors call for four shifts: publishing a visible forward programme of works; standardising repeatable design inputs; testing logistics at business case stage; and involving constructors before design closes. Resilience must be embedded from the outset, and the Edgecumbe and Canterbury earthquakes show it pays. Getting energy policy right could add NZ$22 billion a year to GDP by 2035; delivery will decide whether New Zealand captures those gains.

Cape Town’s day zero: How a water crisis built a data-driven city

Nearly a decade after Cape Town came within days of becoming the first major city to run dry, the crisis still offers lessons for fast-growing cities worldwide. Speaking on VoxDevTalks, senior city official Hugh Cole reflects that the two most effective interventions were public communications and network pressure management, not desalination or tariff hikes. More enduringly, the crisis forced Cape Town to rebuild its entire data infrastructure, embedding evidence-based decision-making across city services from water to its COVID-19 response. With climate change increasing drought risk globally, Cole’s message is clear: cities cannot afford to wait for a crisis to start treating data as a public resource.

Harmful information in disasters: Risk communication for safer decisions (Guidance note)

Misinformation and disinformation now rank as the top global risk, and they strike fastest in disasters, where confusion, fear and slow institutional communication create a vacuum for false narratives to fill. This 2026 guidance note from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction gives communicators and practitioners a practical framework for managing harmful information, from rumours and scams to AI-generated deepfakes, across the disaster cycle. The goal is to reduce harm, not control information, and not every rumour deserves a response. Before a crisis, the work is building trust and partnerships. During one, communicators should pre-emptively warn people about manipulation tricks, communicate uncertainty with “known / unknown / next update” formats, and triage by Reach, Risk and Resonance to decide whether to act, monitor or stay silent. Afterwards, an after-action review closes the loop. The core message: slow approval processes are not just bureaucratic friction but a risk factor.

The Community Capacity Co-design Process (C3P): A framework for hyperlocal community-led disaster preparedness

Most disaster preparedness programmes hand communities a ready-made plan and tell them to follow it. This paper argues that approach misses the point: every neighbourhood has different risks, skills and histories that a one-size-fits-all curriculum often fails to reflect. The authors developed the Community Capacity Co-design Process (C3P), a seven-step framework that puts communities in the driver’s seat: rather than being trained, residents map their own hazards, identify local strengths and gaps, and design a response plan that fits their reality. Built around trauma-informed principles, it is designed to be emotionally safe for people who have already lived through disasters. Tested across seven communities in Australia, Brazil and New Zealand, the framework was well received, with 97% of participants rating activities positively. The authors acknowledge the need for longer-term follow-up to confirm whether communities sustain what they co-designed.

Changes in glacial lakes and associated risks in the China‒Nepal Himalayas

This study presents a quantitative glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) risk assessment for the China–Nepal Himalayas (CNH), a transboundary region of 221,876 km² where trade infrastructure and local communities face growing ice-related hazards. Mapping 2,377 glacial lakes across four time periods using Landsat imagery, the authors document a 27% expansion in lake area between 1992 and 2022, driven by accelerating glacier retreat. A machine learning model, trained on High Mountain Asia GLOF records, reliably identified all nine historically documented outburst lakes in the CNH. Downstream, 260 km of roads, 9.35 km of bridges and nine hydropower facilities are exposed. Of 76 potentially dangerous glacial lakes identified, four were classified as very high risk: Peace Lake, Tilicho Lake, Jialong Co and Poiqu No.1. The framework is designed to be transferable to other data-scarce mountain regions.

When climate forces people to move: Bridging the gap between global frameworks and local action

Climate change is not just warming the planet: it is moving people and trapping others in place. Drawing on nearly a decade of field experience across the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Fiji and the Philippines, this practitioners’ brief tackles the gap between global promises on climate migration and practice on the ground. Climate mobility sits between adaptation, disaster risk, migration and development mandates, and often falls through the cracks between them. Five lessons emerge: build climate mobility into permanent government systems rather than time-limited projects; use data that drives decisions; learn from pilots such as Fiji’s rights-based relocation guidelines; provide dedicated funding, as existing climate finance is largely inaccessible to affected communities; and sustain cross-regional peer learning. In fragile contexts such as the Horn of Africa, climate mobility cannot be separated from conflict, food insecurity and humanitarian needs.

An AI-ready, data engineering playbook for FAIR Integration in EOSC and beyond: CDIF4EOSC Workshop, London, Friday 9 October

Co-located with the Research Data Alliance 27th Plenary Meeting, this workshop showcases the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework for the European Open Science Cloud (CDIF4EOSC) project’s effort to turn the CDIF into a practical playbook for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data integration across the EOSC. Three use cases anchor the work, ocean sciences, climate adaptation, and sustainable materials development, supported by AI-assisted FAIRification tools and partnerships including the Australian Research Data Commons. Sessions cover CDIF tutorials, federated infrastructure, AI-readiness, access rights, and data quality. In-person registration has now closed, but the event is still worth following.

Date & location: 9 October 2026 | The Long Room, Kia Oval Cricket Ground, London

International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2026

Held on 13 October, the 2026 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) focuses on how homes are planned, built, financed and maintained as a determining factor in whether risk is reduced or created. Under the theme “Resilience Starts at Home,” the day calls on governments, the private sector and households to act: enforcing risk-informed building codes, expanding access to affordable insurance, and ensuring early warnings and planning processes reach and include everyone. Events are being held around the world throughout October, so keep an eye out, and you can search for ones in your region on the IDDRR website

Date & location: 13 October 2026 | Global

Beijing Science Dialogue & ISC Midterm Meeting

Part of a wider gathering of more than 250 scientific organisations, the International Science Council (ISC) Midterm Members’ Meeting brings together ISC members and Fellows over two days for business and forward planning. Day one opens with category-based member forums, committee meetings, and a full plenary covering secretariat reports, member forum readouts, and reflections from the outgoing President, closing with a gala dinner. Day two centres on the incoming President’s vision for the next four years, discussion with members, and a formal handover. Optional afternoon side events cover funding challenges for international scientific unions and shaping the post-2030 UN agenda for disaster risk reduction.

Date & location: 22 – 23 October 2026 | Beijing, China

Asian Conference on Disaster Reduction 2026 (SIDEX-ACDR2026)

Held under the theme “Future-Proofing Transboundary Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction through Advanced Technologies for a Resilient Society,” this conference focuses on strengthening cross-border collaboration and using advanced technologies to improve risk assessment, early warning and disaster response across the region. Sessions include a roundtable on progress and remaining challenges in implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015–2030, and a technical session on applying digital transformation to disaster risk reduction in isolated and inaccessible communities. Registration is open.

Date & location: 28 – 30 October 2026 | Singapore EXPO Hall 3 / Peridot Room, Singapore

World Cities Day / Urban October

Held annually on 31 October to close out Urban October, World Cities Day 2026 focuses on urban regeneration as a pathway to adequate housing for all. This year’s theme explores how area-based regeneration, combined with strategies for housing and informal settlements, can deliver inclusive, climate-resilient neighbourhoods, with an emphasis on community-led approaches and safeguards that prevent displacement and ensure existing residents benefit. The event is hosted this year in Fuzhou, China.

Date & location: 31 October 2026 | Fuzhou, China

From Checklists to Crisis Response: CODATA and UNESCO Present the First Global Survey on Data Policies for Times of Crisis

Crises rarely wait for institutions to be ready for them. Floods, epidemics, earthquakes and displacement events unfold across borders, sectors and time zones, and the organisations that respond to them succeed or fail depending on whether they can find, trust and share the right data fast enough. That simple observation sits at the heart of the Data Policies for Times of Crisis (DPTC) Toolkit, developed jointly by UNESCO and the International Science Council’s Committee on Data (CODATA), and it was the common theme of two sessions to which CODATA contributed at the 2026 Global Conference of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD) in Paris: the ISC session on 16 July ‘Resilient Science for Resilient Societies: Protecting Knowledge and Scientists in Times of Crisis’, and the dedicated UNESCO–CODATA thematic session on 17 July ‘Data policies for times of crisis: Enabling open science for coordinated response’.

Two sessions, one message

CODATA’s DPTC work was presented first at the ISC session on 16 July. In the first panel, Prof Virginia Murray, as chair of the UNDRR-ISC HIP Steering Committee, shared the UNDRR-ISC Hazard Information Profiles update 2025 (HIPs). In the second panel, Prof Burçak Başbuğ gave examples from the recovery process after the 2023 Kahramanmaras earthquakes.

On 17 July, the thematic session at UNESCO Headquarters brought the need for data in times of crises (DPTC) message to a dedicated 75-minute hybrid slot in Room XI, opened by Dr Ezra Clark (Chief of Section, Research, Governance and Diplomacy, UNESCO) and closed by Dr Simon Hodson (Executive Director, CODATA). Together, the two sessions made the case that open science is not an abstract ideal for times of crisis — it is operational infrastructure, and the DPTC Toolkit is one attempt to help build it.

The DPTC Toolkit itself — a factsheet, a guidance document and a checklist — was published as part of the UNESCO Open Science Toolkit in June 2025. It is grounded in the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and aligned with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) and TRUST (Transparency, Responsibility, User focus, Sustainability, Technology) principles — three frameworks that, taken together, ask not only whether data can be shared, but whether it should be, and on whose terms.

Putting the Toolkit to the test: the first global survey

The centrepiece of the 17 July session was the presentation of findings from the first global UNESCO-CODATA survey on the implementation of data policies for times of crisis, conducted between March and June 2026 and presented by Ms Rania Sabo (UNESCO) and Prof Burçak Başbuğ Erkan (METU Department of Statistics; Co-Chair, CODATA International Data Policy Committee).

The response itself was a small victory for the open science community the DPTC Toolkit is trying to serve: 146 completed responses from 60 countries, spanning all five UNESCO regions. Academic and research institutions made up the largest share of respondents (79), followed by the public sector (28), non-profit and civil society organisations (14), the private sector (12), international organisations (7) and others (5) — a spread that suggests crisis data governance is very much everybody’s problem, not a niche concern for any one sector.

One figure captured the gap between principle and practice neatly: 78% of respondents believe a crisis-data checklist would be beneficial, but only 22% report already having one. The open-ended responses filled in why. Respondents converged on capacity building and training (43%), risk governance (40%), interoperability and real-time systems (38%), ethics, TRUST and CARE (36%), operationalisation (36%), and funding and infrastructure (33%) as the areas most in need of attention.

Behind the percentages were voices that made the gap concrete.

From Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica: the need is for training support and for researchers to be trained “in best practices for risk management.”
From Arba Minch University, Ethiopia: “the lack of standardized data-sharing protocols across countries and agencies often delays coordinated responses.”
From Loughborough University, UK: the opportunity is “to move from high-level principles to operational, crisis-ready data governance frameworks.”

Other respondents were even blunter. A contributor from a library and information centre in Hungary put it plainly: “we would need more money, more staff — not more regulations and plans.” The Disaster Health Institute in the United States called for academics and researchers to “always be paired with practitioners and field experts.” And from the University of Khartoum, Sudan, came perhaps the sharpest reframing of the whole exercise: the realistic entry point is not “open science” as such, but “data survival and continuity under crisis conditions.”

Three priorities, and a panel to match

From this evidence, three actionable priorities emerged: common standards (48%), training and capacity building (38%), and the value of case studies (36%) — using real examples to test whether the checklist actually holds up in practice, not just on paper. The panel that followed, moderated by Dr Simon Hodson, put these priorities in front of practitioners who live with them daily: Dr Animesh Kumar (UNDRR, Bonn, joining online), Mr Manuel Ricardo Galindo Moreno (UNESCO), Dr Paola Gonzalez Vargas (Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica, online) and Prof Virginia Murray (Co-chair, CODATA International Data Policy Committee; UCL). The discussion translated the survey’s findings — capacity gaps, interoperability gaps, resourcing gaps — into the harder question of what happens next.

Next steps

The session’s expected outcomes point in a consistent direction: identifying priority areas for capacity-building, policy development and pilot implementation tied to the DPTC Toolkit, and strengthening collaboration among the policymakers, researchers, international organisations and practitioners who will need to use it under pressure. The survey results give CODATA and UNESCO an evidence base — rather than an assumption — for where to focus that work: on common standards, on training people rather than just publishing guidance, and on testing the checklist against real case studies rather than treating it as finished. It is intended to explore these priorities through case studies and pilots, which will test the checklist, provide further feedback, and allow the toolkit to be further refined and extended.

A personal reflection, by Mehmet Ali Erkan

I took part in the 2026 Global Conference of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development as an Early Career Researcher, with my participation competitively selected and supported by CODATA using its own funds and an Early Career Researcher travel grant from the International Science Council. I am sincerely grateful to CODATA and the International Science Council for the support that made it possible for me to be in the room at UNESCO Headquarters for these sessions, rather than reading about them afterwards.

My own contribution to the DPTC work was on the analysis side. I reviewed the 146 survey responses quantitatively and qualitatively, and read closely through the open-ended answers to see, in respondents’ own words, where crisis data governance is still falling short. I sat with that material for weeks before the conference, noticing the recurring calls for training, for common standards, and for someone to simply pair researchers with practitioners in the field, and that made the session itself land differently. The numbers and quotes I had already spent time with were suddenly being discussed live, by the people the survey was written for.

That is, I think, what this work is really about. Building a sustainable and equitable future takes more than scientific knowledge on its own. It takes the ability to share data responsibly, collaborate across borders, and translate evidence into action. Being able to contribute to that translation, in a small way, through the DPTC survey is something I am genuinely proud of, and I hope it is only the start of my involvement in this kind of work.

Thank you

We are grateful to UNESCO’s Open Science Team, to the panellists and moderators who gave their time in Paris and online, and to the 146 respondents across 60 countries who took the time to tell us, in their own words, what crisis data governance still needs. We look forward to turning these priorities into the next phase of the DPTC Toolkit’s work.

About the authors

Professor B. Burçak Başbuğ, Co-Chair International Data Policy Committee, CODATA and Faculty Member at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara-Türkiye
Dr. Simon Hodson, Executive Director of CODATA, the Committee on Data of the International Science Council.
Professor Virginia Murray, Co-Chair International Data Policy Committee, CODATA and Chair of the UNDRR-ISC Hazard Information Profiles 2025 update
Ms Rania Sabo, Associate Programme Specialist, Research, Governance, and Diplomacy Section, Sciences Sector, UNESCO
Mehmet Ali Erkan, PhD Researcher, Research and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Statistics at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara-Türkiye

August 2026: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Data Management Challenges for Translational Agricultural Research in West Africa: The Case of the Crops Research Institute, Ghana Author: Joyce Koranteng-Acquah, Sabina Leonelli URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-035
	Title: VESA: A Visualization-Enabled Search Application for Exploratory Dataset Discovery Author: Pawandeep Kaur Betz, Tobias Hecking, Hudaif Mohammad Malikathazham, Andreas Gerndt URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-034
	Title: Designing Repository-Level Evaluation Criteria: A Data Stewardship Framework for Research Data Repositories Author: Sooyeon Han, Suntae Kim, JongGyu Han, Juseop Kim URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-033
	Title: Indigenous Governance of Data Held by Organisations: How to Operationalise Indigenous Data Sovereignty Principles in Australia Author: Cassandra Sedran-Price, Riley Taitingfong, Rose Barrowcliffe, Jacob Prehn, Maggie Walter, Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews, Raymond Lovett URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-032
	Title: Navigating Gaps in Governance and Capacity for Equitable and Responsible Data Sharing in Health Research in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Literature Review Author: Pamela Andanda, Johannes Machinya, Takudzwa Mutomba, Larisha Bedhesi URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-031
	Title: A Semantic Web Model for Standardizing FAIR Metrics and Assessment Results Author: Robert Huber URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-030
	Title: The JARDIN Hackathon to Seek Solutions to Overcome Technical Barriers in Health Data Exchange: From the Point of Care to European Registry Networks Author: César Bernabé, Daphne Wijnbergen, Alberto Cámara, Karolis Cremers, Margarida Magalhães, Daniela Vicentini Albring, Sergi Aguiló-Castillo, Kalia Orphanou, Stella Tamana, Maria Xenophontos, Laura Menotti, Mirco Cazzaro, Ornella Irrera, Joëlle Thonnard, Sander van Boom, Iris C. M. Pelsma, Annika Jacobsen, Andrew Gibson, Veronica Popa, Mark Wilkinson, Marco Roos URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-029
	Title: Persistent Identifiers in Germany: Key Findings of a Nationwide Survey Author: Andreas Czerniak, Steffi Genderjahn, Paul Vierkant, Stephanie Hagemann-Wilholt, Nina Schönfelder, Antonia C. Schrader, Frauke Ziedorn, Barbara K. Fischer, Dirk Pieper, Marc Lange Download URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-028

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: August 2026 Edition

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

July 2026: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Automated Retrieval and Analysis of Finnish Cultural Metadata with finna Author: Akewak Jeba, Julia Matveeva, Leo Lahti URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-027
	Title: Insects in the Mail, a Quantitative Analysis of Charles Robertson’s Scientific Correspondence Author: Sandi Caldrone, Marcella Lees, Bethany G. Anderson URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-026
	Title: Work Plans: A Tool for Suggesting Implementation Strategies to Improve the FAIRness of Data Repositories Author: Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich, Ismael Kherroubi Garcia, Christopher Erdmann, Julianne Christopher, Lisa M. Mayer, Darya Pokutnaya, Christine R. Kirkpatrick URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-025
	Title: A Structured Examination of Reproducibility: A Case Study for HTS Using the PRIMAD Model and BioCompute Object Author: Meznah Aloqalaa, Stian Soiland-Reyes, Carole Goble URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-024
	Title: MatSci-YAMZ: Integrating Human and Artificial Intelligence Vocabulary Author: Scott McClellan, Addison Ireland, Colton Gerber, Joel Pepper, Christopher B. Rauch, Mat Kelly, John Kunze, Jane Greenberg URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-023
	Title: Indigenous Data Governance – Laying the Groundwork for a Broader Dialogue in the Aftermath of Truth and Reconciliation Committees in Sápmi Author: Susanna Ragnhild A. Siri, Sara Elle Gaup, Trond Trosterud, Sjur Nøstebø Moshagen, Christina Storm Mienna, Ann Ragnhild Broderstad, Máret J. Heatta, Eva Josefsen, Else Grete Broderstad, Rauna Kuokkanen, Per Axelsson URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-022

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: Jul 2026 Edition

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

Urban FAIRscape at the Urban and Climate Risk Data Lab

This blog post was inspired by the opportunity to join the Urban Risk and Climate Risk Data Lab event hosted by the World Bank Group in Paris, 21st to 22nd May 2026.

By Burçak Başbuğ, Shaily Gandhi, Matti Heikkurinen, and Slava Tykhonov.

For many people, the first associations with the word “Urban” are perhaps related to progress; skyscrapers surrounded by pristine parks, new opportunities, human connections and delightful cultural exchanges. However, this vision bringing people together also drives unplanned urban sprawl, as well as challenges that infrastructures and services struggle to cope with. Escape into population centres may also not be voluntary. For example, refugee camps often turn into permanent, growing settlements.

Independent of the drivers, concentration of population into urban centres also concentrates risks. The details may vary, but the number of individuals and the value of assets exposed to hazard events grows, while risk reduction activities and disaster response planning may face additional constraints. Unfortunately, the economic and social dynamics provide incentives to set these risks aside. The same pattern can often be observed in the approach to climate change, pandemic preparedness or maintenance of critical infrastructure. The combination of rapid urbanisation and climate change is an example of a situation where the growing, cumulative hazards may also be more than the sum of their parts.

At the same time, we have unprecedented access to data, thanks to initiatives such as Hyogo and Sendai frameworks and other mechanisms to track the impact of hazard events. We also have IT infrastructure to process these datasets efficiently and put them into context of climate and weather data. However, we need to use these resources better: at the moment, data is often siloed, inaccessible or incompatible for efficient risk assessment and response.

Leaving the $2.3 trillion on the table

Hazard and exposure profiles have shifted dramatically: During the last 65 years, the proportion of urban population has grown from 34% to 58%. Despite this, most of the disaster losses would be avoidable. The resources that could be refocused into more productive uses are considerable: according to a recent UNDRR report, direct disaster losses average 180-200 b$ annually. If you take indirect impact and ecosystem damage into account, the costs to the global economy grows to 2.3 trillion $. This sum, divided by the estimated world population (8.23 billion, according to the United Nations Population Fund), corresponds to almost 250$ per person per year. A sum that is noticeable in the rich industrialised countries — and existential, for populations living below the 3$/day poverty threshold.

Quantifying the scale of the problem is an important first step. However, as noted by Jenty Kirsch-Wood (UNDRR) during the workshop:

“We can’t just keep re-defining the problem in a better way”

Data needs to drive action. The workshop presentations demonstrated several possible solutions that aimed at going beyond awareness raising. From using satellite data to anticipate the development of urban sprawl and to support planning to targeted clean-up activities to maintain drainage capacity of drainage systems to prevent flooding. The workshop provided an opportunity to share steps that may seem little in isolation but — put together — will have a growing impact.

Data, data, data every where (The Rime of the Ancient FAIRiner)

The hands-on part of the workshop acted as a reality check – and a call to action. Attempting to find relevant datasets and adding them to the GFDRR Urban Data Tracker drove home the degree the approach to data is fragmented — and how difficult it is to find datasets that are of suitable granularity and format to address urban challenges. The search provided a tangible reminder of the huge amount of data in various forms on the Internet, but — like seawater – most of it requires processing before being ready for consumption.

This “desalination process” is often made more difficult by choices, undoubtedly made under time or budget pressures. For example: lack of persistent identifiers (leading to “Link rot”), publishing datasets without metadata describing the syntax and semantics of the data, making only aggregate data (e.g. national level instead of commune or settlement) data available or referencable. Adding language barriers and careless use of AI can lead to drawing very plausible and completely erroneous conclusions from the data.

Discussions triggered by the exercise highlighted not only the economic and human costs of fragmented systems, but also the urgent need for shared standards, collaborative workflows, and FAIR data practices. The workshop initiated conversations reflecting that resilience is no longer only about surviving crises, it is about building connected data ecosystems that enable faster, smarter, and more equitable decisions before, during, and after disasters. As a positive sign, the examples and demonstrators illustrated promising examples of integrated solutions that were nevertheless limited in their scope.

CODATA: connecting FAIR islands

We could consider these promising demonstrators and pilots as “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) islands”. These systems provide clear value for a smaller subgroups of stakeholders, have trained userbases and are well-understood by the funding agencies leading to the sustainability of these solutions.

CODATA is interested in contributing, through several channels, to improve the interconnectedness of this “archipelago”. These channels include policies, processes and tools that can improve the FAIR aspects of the solutions and improve their interoperability and reusability. The approach in all cases needs to be minimally invasive and based on incremental, iterative improvements.

The primary policy channel is developed by the Data Policy for Times of Crisis Facilitated by Open Science (DPTC) Toolkit. The resources developed by the group — including a factsheet, a guidance document, and a checklist — were introduced on 4 June 2025 into the UNESCO Open Science Toolkit. These resources are designed to strengthen cross-border crisis data management and to support governments, UN agencies, research institutions, civil protection authorities, and other stakeholders in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from crises.

Legal and organisational interoperability (LOI) has been identified recently as a topic requiring focused attention. The goal is to ensure that the FAIR data ecosystem complies with the relevant regulations, supports coherent data-driven activities across organisational boundaries and is supported by lifecycle management approaches that ensure that the data solutions provide predictable service also years into the future.

Both of the policies and LOI rely on tools and semantic frameworks ensuring semantic and technical interoperability of data. The primary solutions include the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF), which provides a practical and developer-friendly guide to implementing the FAIR principles, using existing domain neutral standards, in a way that enhances Interoperability and Reusability and conforms to current good web and data practices. CDIF can be combined with human-controlled AI solutions that reduce the efforts needed to make datasets ready for integration. Importantly, CDIF also provides frameworks making it possible to technically enforce agreements between organisations and individuals.

These solutions are being developed and implemented by CODATA and partners in the Climate-Adapt4EOSC and CDIF4EOSC projects. We are very keen to explore collaboration with the participants and organisers of the Urban Risk and Climate Risk Data Lab.

Thank you and see you soon (hopefully)

We see a crucial role of events like Urban & Climate Risk Data Lab that allow sharing of best practices, tools and experiences. They will speed up harnessing data resources to meet the evolving and growing challenges in the Urban and Climate risk landscape. We would thus like to express our gratitude to the organisers:

And hope to be able to join the follow-up events and activities!

About the authors

CODATA team at the Urban Risk and Climate Risk Data Lab workshop. From left to right, Slava Tykhonov, Burçak Başbuğ, Shaily Gandhi, and Matti Heikkurinen.

Burçak Başbuğ is Professor of Statistics and Disaster Science at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara; she is co-chair of the CODATA International Data Policy Committee and co-chair of the UNESCO-CODATA Working Group on Data Policy in Times of Crisis.

Shaily Gandhi is Senior PostDoc at the Geo-social AI Research Group, IT:U, Linz; she is an ISC Fellow and a former lead of the CODATA Connect Early Career Network.

Matti Heikkurinen is Project Portfolio Manager at CODATA leading work on Legal and Organisational Interoperability in numerous projects.

Slava Tykhonov is Head of AI and Interoperability at CODATA and a Dataverse ambassador.

June 2026: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Universal Mandates vs. Contextual Realities: A Scoping Review of Ethical Tensions and Power Asymmetries in Global Open Science Author: Mthokozisi Masumbika Ncube, Josiline Chigwada, Patrick Ngulube URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-021
	Title: FAIR Data in Action: The User-Centric Software Suite FAIRSave for Fully Digital, Data-Driven Studies in Materials Science Author: Malte L. Flachmann, Ilia T. Bagov, Nick T. Garabedian, Christian Greiner URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-020

May 2026: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Correction: Building Responsible and Sustainable Open Data Literacy Skills for Early Career Researchers: A Decade of the SoRDS Programme Author: Shaily Gandhi, Steve Diggs, Marcela Alfaro Córdoba, Louise Bezuidenhout, Raphael Cobe, Sara El Jadid, Bianca Peterson, Robert Quick, Hugh Shanahan, Shanmugasundaram Venkataraman, Ekpe Okorafor, Veerle Van den Eynden URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-019
	Title: Enabling the Reuse of Personal Data in Research: A Classification Model for Legal Compliance Author: Eduard Mata i Noguera, Ruben Ortiz Uroz, Ignasi Labastida i Juan URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-018
	Title: On the Darwin Core Term dwc:habitat, and the Need to Adopt a European Vocabulary Based on NATURA2000 and EUNIS Classifications, with a Comment on International Applicability Author: Roberto Pizzolotto, Fabiola Durante, Wouter Dekoninck URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-017
	Title: Certification Frameworks for Scientific Data Repositories: Strengthening Repository Trustworthiness Author: David Castle, Daniela Santos Oliveira, Dale Peters, Claudia Bauzer Medeiros, Ioana Popescu, Devika Madalli, Rebecca Koskela, Meredith Goins, Suzie Allard URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2026-016

CODATA Blog

News from the CODATA community and from Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director