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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.

Cover
Documents and publications

Innovative finance reshaping cyclone resilience and child-responsive disaster management in Madagascar

This case study shows how UNICEF, the Government of Madagascar and civil society are working together to pilot a ground-breaking, innovative finance solution that includes a child-responsive, parametric risk transfer product for tropical cyclones.
Cover
Documents and publications

Africa: A rights-based approach to climate change

This report examines the application of a human rights-based approach (HRBA) to climate change programming (CCP) in Africa, paying attention to the criteria of adaptation, resilience, loss and damage, and human mobility as a facilitator of climate action.
Flooded residential area with underwater cars and houses from hurricane Debby rainfall water in Laurel Meadows community in Sarasota, Florida.
Update

Flooding: Is it time to stop living in basements?

Repeated flooding is neither inevitable nor exceptional. Whether it's the result of a river overflowing, torrential rain or even a failure in the water supply network, flooding has become part of our daily lives.
Conversation Media Group, the
Wildfire raging near houses
Research briefs

New gels could protect buildings during wildfires

Researchers at Stanford Engineering have developed a sprayable gel that creates a shield to protect buildings from wildfire damage. It lasts longer and is more effective than existing commercial options.
Stanford University
Bird's eye view of El Salvador beaches
Research briefs

Fighting coastal erosion with electricity

Bioinspired process makes marine sand more durable, resistant to erosion
Northwestern University
Silhouette electricity pylons during sunset
Research briefs

Sharing risk to avoid power outages in an era of extreme weather

Stanford research suggests that more integrated management of electricity resources across the region could significantly reduce the risk of power outages and accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Stanford University
small business worker
Update

Free online tool kit can help small businesses prepare for climate change

Corner stores, day cares, auto mechanics … small businesses provide vital services to communities. But many are vulnerable to increasingly extreme weather as the climate warms.
Yale Climate Connections
Submarine telecommunication cable
Update

Avalanches can grow 100 times larger under the sea than on land – here’s why they’re a risk to the internet

Underwater avalanches are powerful natural events that happen all the time under the surface of the ocean. They are impossible to see and extremely difficult to measure, which means we know little about how they work.
Conversation Media Group, the
Waterspout in waterbody
Update

Will tornadoes and waterspouts thrive as Earth heats up?

Southern Italy has endured successive heatwaves this summer. Sea surface temperatures around Sicily on the day the Bayesian yacht sunk were reported to have been near 30°C. Warm ocean water is rocket fuel for storms that generate tornadic waterspouts
Conversation Media Group, the
Crowd waiting for the train during a hot day in London, UK (2022)
Research briefs

Temperature-related mortality burden to worsen in Europe

Excessively high or low temperatures presently cause 407,000 fatalities a year. Heat-related deaths, now six times more frequent in southern than in northern Europe, will occur 9.3 times more frequently in the south than in the north by 2100.
European Commission Joint Research Centre
illustration
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