Disaster risk is on the rise, with more intense shocks and stresses worsening inequality and hindering progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. Hazard events are becoming more frequent and severe worldwide. High levels of vulnerability and exposure make these events more likely to turn into disasters. In today’s complex risk environment, the past is no longer a reliable predictor of the future. Active learning and enhanced resilience-building approaches are crucial for adapting to an increasingly abnormal and unpredictable climate.
Extreme disasters are not “normal.” Recent climate hazard events have surpassed historical norms and many risk model projections. Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are driving these changes and intensifying natural cycles like El Niño, making them more extreme and volatile.
Everyday decisions in urban planning, infrastructure, poverty reduction, and environmental management are also increasing disaster risks. Our collective knowledge on risk reduction is not being fully applied to address current, new, and emerging challenges. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Proactive measures to reduce vulnerability and exposure to hazards can act as shock absorbers, mitigating the impact of increasingly intense hazard events. Sustainable development for future generations requires embedding resilience as a core principle in engineering, ecology, and social development.
Just as athletes learn from setbacks and successes to improve performance, governments and communities must strengthen their resilience, flexibility, and agility in the face of future hazard events. Resilience provides immediate benefits and creates essential buffers that help stabilize systems and markets in an era of increasing natural hazards and broader threats.
In areas where infrastructure is present but strained by more intense events, a detailed understanding of disaster impacts on people, the planet, and prosperity can help refine risk reduction strategies and focus on disaster avoidance. Nature-based solutions, such as protecting wetlands to absorb floodwaters or preserving coastal forests to buffer against storms, are key assets in reducing vulnerability and exposure.
Applying these approaches requires listening to communities and local experts, leveraging existing knowledge, and collaborating to upgrade strategies based on future trends and systems thinking. It also demands systems that measure and learn from disasters, quicker replication of successful strategies in local contexts, and adjustments when challenges arise.
Perhaps most importantly, much of the infrastructure and services needed to support our growing human population have yet to be built. Wise and proactive governments will see this as a prime opportunity to embed resilience and a disaster-avoidance mindset into the fabric of our future cities and communities, benefiting both current and future generations.