Disaster Resilience and Recovery
The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Disaster risk reduction and recovery studies why hazards become disasters and what societies can do about it. It spans the policies that limit exposure, the preparedness that lets institutions act, the warning systems that buy time, the response that saves lives and the recovery that decides future risk. This overview sets out why the field matters, what experts study and how it connects to the other fields of Disaster Resilience and Recovery.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For field overview, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on flood water, population density, active fires and true-colour imagery, framed on the Philippines; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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GeographyFor field overview, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on flood water, population density, active fires and true-colour imagery, framed on the Philippines; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
The Disaster Resilience and Recovery field covers risk reduction, readiness, emergency systems and recovery capacities across communities and institutions. Experts in it study questions such as risk reduction policy and preparedness and continuity, with methods such as decision analysis under uncertainty as well as social and behavioural science. Its counterparts at GRF and GRA look at the same systems through governance and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Disaster risk is usually described as a combination of hazard, exposure and vulnerability, set against capacity. Hazards are only partly controllable, but exposure and vulnerability are the product of decisions: where to build, how to build, who has insurance or savings, which services have backup and who is reached by warnings. That makes disaster risk a development question as much as an emergency one.
Losses fall unevenly. People in informal settlements, older and disabled people, those with limited income and those excluded from information often face higher exposure and slower recovery. Small businesses and local governments may lack the reserves to absorb shocks. Understanding that distribution is part of the science, because average losses can hide the people for whom a disaster is permanent.
Land use, building codes, infrastructure standards and public investment that reduce exposure and vulnerability. See Risk reduction policy.
Plans, continuity arrangements, stockpiles and trained people. See Preparedness and continuity and Community and local preparedness.
Whether warnings reach and move people, and how early action is triggered. See Early warning readiness and Anticipatory action.
Reconstruction, livelihoods and the choices that shape the next disaster. See Recovery and reconstruction.
Loss accounting and exercises that turn experience into better arrangements. See Disaster loss accounting and Multi-hazard exercises.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Vulnerability | The conditions that increase the susceptibility of people, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards. |
| Preparedness | The knowledge and capacities to anticipate, respond to and recover from likely, imminent or current disasters. |
| Build back better | Using recovery and reconstruction to increase resilience by integrating risk reduction into what is rebuilt. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from the interactions and dependencies within and between systems, where a shock can propagate and threaten the functioning of the whole. |
Disasters connect hazards, infrastructure, public finance, health and governance. Dependencies and consequences maps those links.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.