Blogs

A severe and prolonged heat wave stifled much of Central Europe this summer, buckling train tracks in Serbia and forcing at least 10 countries to issue red alerts for health concerns and water conservation. Once a rare nuisance, extreme weather events like this are becoming more commonplace throughout the region – and more dangerous.

Incorporating disability inclusiveness into long-term disaster and climate risk management is necessary, not only to ensure that persons with disabilities are not disproportionately impacted by natural hazards, but because disability-inclusive disaster risk management interventions have the potential to benefit all members of society.

Challenges in development are growing at unprecedented rates, driven by complex human crises: refugees, rapid and unsustainable urbanization and climate change, failure to meet basic infrastructure needs, youth unemployment and disengagement, and stubbornly poor health and education outcomes, to name a few.

Instead of looking at potential future damages, we must look at how hydromet services can help cities and communities flourish with greater resilience today:

Globally, river floods affect more than 21 million people. By 2030, due to climate change, population growth, and rapid urbanization, this number could rise to 54 million.

The World Bank recently committed that lending operations should incorporate resilience to disasters, but that doesn't mean that project leaders suddenly need to become experts in natural hazards...

There remain challenges and barriers to entry for women in mapping and tech, many of which are cultural. However, a panel at the first State of the Map Africa conference provided some practical solutions to tackling some of the challenges.

Between 2005 and 2014, due to natural disasters, the Central America region had a nominal cumulative loss of around US$5.8 billion, and witnessed more than 3,410 deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.