Illustrative: a block model of a city with water rising and falling through its streets, a heat island over its core, or the city growing

Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Hazards, Disasters and Resilience

Disaster Risk Reduction and Early Warning

Disaster risk reduction

Disaster risk reduction, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Disaster risk reduction: foundations and practice

Disaster risk reduction aims to prevent new risk, reduce existing risk and manage residual risk.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
In authoring
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Principles endorsed by major economies can shape how finance ministries and development banks screen and prioritise investment in risk reduction. G20 Research Group, University of Toronto, G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Ministerial Declaration, 13 October 2025

Learning outcomes

  1. Define disaster risk and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain the Sendai Framework and its targets and hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against national and local DRR strategies, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. The Sendai Framework and its targets
    • The Sendai Framework and its targets
    • Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity
    • National and local DRR strategies
  2. Risk-informed development
    • Risk-informed development
    • Disaster risk governance and mandates
    • Monitoring progress on DRR
  3. Nature-based risk reduction
    • Nature-based risk reduction
    • Prospective, corrective and compensatory risk management
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • A loss exceedance curve gives the loss at every return period; its integral is the average annual loss; a risk reduction measure lowers the curve; the avoided loss, discounted over the measure's life, against its cost gives the benefit-cost ratio a finance ministry asks for.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-X2 Disaster risk reduction and crisis management
  • NRS-C14 Resilience capability and maturity
  • NRS-P2 National risk assessment and public risk registers
  • NRS-H62 Hazard family: Compound and multi-hazard events
  • NRS-M4 Method fabric: Vulnerability, fragility and resilience

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. G20 Research Group, University of Toronto, G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Ministerial Declaration, 13 October 2025
  2. Shreve and Kelman, Does mitigation save? Reviewing cost-benefit analyses of disaster risk reduction, 2014
  3. Mechler, Reviewing estimates of the economic efficiency of disaster risk management, 2016
  4. Hallegatte, Vogt-Schilb, Bangalore and Rozenberg, Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters, 2017
02Live map

Hazards now in Türkiye

Flood water, active fires, heavy rain and smoke, beside where people live, over Türkiye.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 3

Hazards now

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

Hazards now, framed on Türkiye.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONET · U.S. Geological SurveySources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • GPM IMERG precipitation, NASA Precipitation Processing System; distributed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • MODIS and VIIRS atmosphere products, NASA LANCE and LAADS DAAC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • Live: NASA EONET Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
  • Live: U.S. Geological Survey Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • River discharge forecast, 30 days with range (GloFAS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information 2026; not a flood warning.
  • Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Optional layers (20 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
  • Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
  • Precipitation rate, daily mean: GPM IMERG, NASA GES DISC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Aerosol optical depth, daily: VIIRS NOAA-20 Deep Blue AOD, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

Frontier course · L3 advanced, programme courses and standards

Disaster risk reduction: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed disaster risk reduction between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Disaster risk reduction: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Principles endorsed by major economies can shape how finance ministries and development banks screen and prioritise investment in risk reduction. G20 Research Group, University of Toronto, G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Ministerial Declaration, 13 October 2025

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in disaster risk reduction since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce G20 ministers endorse principles for investing in disaster risk reduction on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. G20 ministers endorse principles for investing in disaster risk reduction
    • Under South Africa's presidency, G20 disaster risk reduction ministers adopted the Resilience For All declaration, endorsed voluntary high-level principles for investing in risk reduction, and backed pre-arranged finance, early warning and resilient infrastructure.
    • Principles endorsed by major economies can shape how finance ministries and development banks screen and prioritise investment in risk reduction.
    • G20 Research Group, University of Toronto, 13 October 2025
  2. Global Platform 2025 issues the Geneva Call for disaster risk reduction
    • The eighth Global Platform in Geneva, the first since the Sendai midterm review, closed with a co-chairs' summary setting out an eight-point call to speed implementation before 2030, covering risk data, governance, prevention finance and early warning.
    • It signals global priorities for the final Sendai years, useful for aligning national strategies and investment cases with what governments are being asked to deliver.
    • UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 6 June 2025
  3. GAR 2025 puts true annual disaster costs above 2.3 trillion dollars
    • UNDRR's Global Assessment Report 2025, Resilience Pays, estimated direct disaster costs at about 202 billion dollars a year, rising to over 2.3 trillion when cascading and ecosystem costs are included, and focused on financing risk reduction.
    • Counting indirect and ecosystem losses changes the business case for prevention and supports integrating risk reduction into public and private investment decisions.
    • UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 27 May 2025
  4. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  5. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • Drones, Earth observation, machine learning forecasting and cell broadcast warnings.
    • Telecom and positioning failure, and AI-generated misinformation in a crisis.

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-X2 Disaster risk reduction and crisis management
  • NRS-C14 Resilience capability and maturity
  • NRS-P2 National risk assessment and public risk registers
  • NRS-H62 Hazard family: Compound and multi-hazard events
  • NRS-M4 Method fabric: Vulnerability, fragility and resilience

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 5 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. G20 Research Group, University of Toronto, G20 Disaster Risk Reduction Ministerial Declaration, 13 October 2025
  2. UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Global Platform 2025 Co-Chairs' Summary: Geneva Call for Disaster Risk Reduction, 6 June 2025
  3. UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Global Assessment Report (GAR) 2025, 27 May 2025
  4. Shreve and Kelman, Does mitigation save? Reviewing cost-benefit analyses of disaster risk reduction, 2014
  5. Mechler, Reviewing estimates of the economic efficiency of disaster risk management, 2016
  6. Hallegatte, Vogt-Schilb, Bangalore and Rozenberg, Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters, 2017
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Disaster risk

The potential loss of life, injury or damaged assets in a period, as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity.

Term

Vulnerability

The conditions that increase the susceptibility of people, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards.

Term

Capacity

The strengths and resources available to manage and reduce disaster risk and strengthen resilience.

Term

Residual risk

The disaster risk that remains even when effective risk reduction measures are in place.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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