Knowledge Base Highlights and editors' picks

Top stories and editors' picks from the most recent additions. Explore the whole Knowledge Base.

Every week the PreventionWeb team of editors selects the latest news and research, reports and publications on disaster risk reduction – here is their selection of the latest must-read content.

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Areal view of some islands in the Pacific

Update

11 July 2024

As climate storm gathers, Pacific islands race to set up warning systems

Only one-third of Small island developing states have multi-hazard early warning systems, which can detect a range of potential disasters. As a result, people in small island developing states are 15 times more likely to die from climate disasters.

United Nations Environment Programme

A storm ocean wave crashes over the road and floods coastal houses.

Update

10 July 2024

Climate change has forced America’s oldest Black town to higher ground

Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest community in the United States founded by formerly enslaved people, has been trapped in a cycle of disaster and disinvestment for decades. It sits on a plain below the banks of the Tar River.

Grist Magazine

Research briefs

11 July 2024

Fires and climate are changing. Science needs to change too

A new white paper on the many ways wildfires affect people and the planet makes clear that as fires become more intense and frequent, the urgency for effective and proactive fire science grows.

North Carolina State University

Women irrigate and till the soil in a garden

Update

10 July 2024

How early warning systems and parametric insurance can build climate resilience in Africa

Up to 60% of the over 1.2 billion population in Africa is not protected by early warning systems. Improvements in risk modelling and disaster preparedness have significant implications for strengthening climate resilience in Africa.

World Economic Forum

Documents and publications

10 July 2024

An introduction to assessing climate resilience in smallholder supply chains

This guide offers food and beverage companies a working definition of climate resilience, plus an actionable process guide and sample indicator framework for diagnosing climate resilience in smallholder crop-focused supply chains.

Update

9 July 2024

Extreme heat waves broiling the planet in 2024 aren’t normal: How climate change is heating up weather around the world

Less than a month into summer 2024, the vast majority of the U.S. population has already experienced an extreme heat wave. Millions of people were under heat warnings across the western U.S. in early July or sweating through humid heat in the East.

Conversation Media Group, the

Aerial view of a massive Rocinha favela in Sao Conrado, Rio de Janeiro/Brazil

Update

9 July 2024

Brazil needs a new approach to climate mobility

Over the past two decades at least eight million Brazilians have fled or migrated due to storms, floods, forest fires, drought, and sea-level rise. In 2023 alone, around 745,000 people were displaced by extreme climate events.

Conversation Media Group, the

Women conduct a disaster risk assessment in a rural village in Lao PDR.

Update

8 July 2024

Climate action from a gender perspective: A systematic review of the impact of climate policies on inequality

This systematic review highlights the scarcity of research integrating a gender perspective into climate policy impact assessments and calls for more gender-sensitive analyses and the application of feminist theory to address this gap.

weADAPT

Houses with wildfire smoke in the background

Update

8 July 2024

Wildfire smoke linked to thousands of premature deaths every year in California alone

In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, wildfire smoke likely contributed to more than 52,000 premature deaths across California alone from 2008 to 2018, with an economic impact from the deaths of more than US$430 billion.

Conversation Media Group, the

Update

8 July 2024

Athletes warn of extreme heat risk at olympic, paralympic games

Some of the world's top elite athletes are voicing concern about competing during extreme heat in a new report released before the Olympics and Paralympics to be held this summer in France.

The Energy Mix