"Disaster risk reduction and the limits of truisms: Improving the knowledge and practice interface" featured on PreventionWeb

The most recent paper of a team of CNDS fellows, "Disaster risk reduction and the limits of truisms: Improving the knowledge and practice interface", led by Daniel Nohrstedt has been featured on PreventionWeb, the global knowledge sharing platform on disaster risk reduction, managed by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

The paper challenges oversimplified or unsubstantiated claims/assumptions in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and utilizes the SFDRR as an illustrative case to identify and interrogate ten selected truisms, from across the social and natural sciences, that have been prevalent in shaping DRR research and practice. The ten truisms concern forecasting, loss, conflict, migration, the local level, collaboration, social capital, prevention, policy change, and risk awareness.

The authors discuss central claims associated with each truism, relate those claims to insights in recent DRR scholarship, and end with suggestions for developing the field through advances in conceptualization, measurement, and causal inference.

The team of co-authors is composed of Charles Parker, Nina von Uexkull, Johanna Mård,  Kristina Petrova, Malin Göteman, Jacob Hileman, Gabriele Messori, Giuliano Di Baldassarre (Uppsala University), Frederike Albrecht (Swedish Defence University) and Lars Nyberg (Karlstad University).

The paper can be accessed on PreventionWeb or on ScienceDirect.