Exposure to natural hazard events unassociated with policy change for improved disaster risk reduction

Natural hazard events provide opportunities for policy change to enhance disaster risk reduction (DRR), yet it remains unclear whether these events actually fulfill this transformative role around the world. In an article in Nature, CNDS fellows Daniel Nohrstedt, Maurizio Mazzoleni, Charles F. Parker & Giuliano Di Baldassarre investigate relationships between the frequency (number of events) and severity (fatalities, economic losses, and affected people) of natural hazards and DRR policy change in 85 countries over eight years.

Their results show that frequency and severity factors are generally unassociated with improved DRR policy when controlling for income-levels, differences in starting policy values, and hazard event types. This is a robust result that accounts for event frequency and different hazard severity indicators, four baseline periods estimating hazard impacts, and multiple policy indicators. Although they were able to show that natural hazards are unassociated with improved DRR policy globally, the study unveils variability in policy progress between countries experiencing similar levels of hazard frequency and severity.

Read the entire article "Exposure to natural hazard events unassociated with policy change for improved disaster risk reduction" here.

(Image removed) Fig. 3: Map of candidate countries illustrating different selection logics involving natural hazard frequency, severity, and policy change