In the 06/17/2025 edition:
Climate resilience is now a global priority. In this June 2025 briefing, we highlight the latest efforts and scientific developments in disaster risk reduction, sustainable infrastructure, and climate adaptation across the world.
DRR Community Voices: Beyond barriers: best practice tips for translating emergency information
By Anni Fordham on Jun 16, 2025 04:05 pm
When emergencies strike, clear communication saves lives. Yet, accessing critical information remains challenging for many culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
News: Could this city be the model for how to tackle the housing crisis and climate change?
By NPR on Jun 16, 2025 03:25 pm
Vienna in Austria isn’t just working to reduce climate pollution, it’s also building new infrastructure to help adapt to global warming.
News: Human development without incorporating resilience is no longer an option, warns UNDP
By United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Jun 16, 2025 03:17 pm
New regional Human Development Report reveals the stagnation of progress in human development and the urgent need for new strategies.
News: China launches satellite for disaster monitoring
By People’s Republic of China – government on Jun 16, 2025 03:11 pm
China launched an electromagnetic monitoring satellite, which is expected to enhance the country’s “space-air-ground” integrated monitoring capabilities for major disasters.
News: Scaling up embedded area yield index insurance in the input voucher system (IVS) in Ethiopia
By InsuResilience Solutions Fund on Jun 16, 2025 02:19 pm
This insurance solution is embedded within Ethiopia’s Input Voucher System (IVS), ensuring that smallholder farmers receive financial protection against crop failures.
News: Extreme heat is hitting women in Ghana hard
By Earth.org on Jun 16, 2025 01:57 pm
As rising temperatures scorch the West African nation of Ghana, the heat is on to act. Women, often the most vulnerable to the climate crisis, bear the brunt of droughts, floods, and storms.
News: Predicting the effects of geomagnetic storms
By Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) on Jun 16, 2025 01:33 pm
Just a few years ago, there were only around 1,000 operational satellites, today there are nearly 6,000. It is estimated that more than 100,000 satellites will be launched into orbit in the next five years alone.
News: Researchers simulate earthquakes to stress test a 3D-printed concrete house
By University of Bristol on Jun 16, 2025 01:15 pm
Scientists at the University of Bristol have used the UK’s largest shaking table to mimic conditions of a medium-magnitude earthquake to assess the potential damage to a 3D-printed building.
News: Wet soils increase flooding during atmospheric river storms
By Desert Research Institute (DRI) on Jun 16, 2025 12:03 pm
A new study examined decades of atmospheric river storms across the West Coast to pinpoint the conditions that lead to catastrophic flooding.
News: New mapping to increase Quebec homes in flood zones by about 30%
By CBC/Radio-Canada on Jun 16, 2025 11:35 am
The number of Quebec homes located in flood zones will likely increase by 30 per cent when new maps are introduced next year, the province’s environment minister said.
DRR Community Voices: Glacier-related disaster risk reduction: Enhancing resilience from mountains to valleys
By Alex Mackey on Jun 13, 2025 07:30 pm
Risks from GLOFs are expected to increase as new lakes form from melting and rapidly retreating glaciers due to climate change. The number of glacial lakes has increased by 53 per cent since 1990.
News: New tool could help Florida homeowners weather flood risks, lower insurance costs
By University of Florida on Jun 13, 2025 07:22 pm
A team from the University of Florida is helping Florida homeowners make smarter choices about building materials and interior finishes that better protect their homes and potentially save on their insurance premiums.
News: Almost half of California’s faults — including San Andreas — are overdue for earthquakes
By LiveScience, TechMediaNetwork on Jun 13, 2025 06:51 pm
California’s earthquakes are far more likely to be “overdue” compared with earthquakes in the rest of the world.
News: Rhode Island drowns in rising sea of disregarded climate studies
By ecoRI News on Jun 13, 2025 05:12 pm
The author believes that beyond climate change studies, political leadership is needed to support significant investment in mitigation programs and initiatives.
News: As climate change worsens global locust crisis, researchers offer solutions
By Mongabay on Jun 13, 2025 04:39 pm
Scientists predict that locust outbreaks will worsen with climate change, and they suggest a way forward by integrating local communities’ knowledge.
News: How rivers fuel hurricanes — and how that knowledge can improve forecasts
By University of South Florida on Jun 13, 2025 03:29 pm
A recent study led by researchers at USF’s College of Marine Science shows that water discharged from rivers can play a role in this phenomenon. Data about freshwater plumes could help experts improve hurricane forecasts.
News: Forecasting disasters before they strike: How Amrita’s risk assessment models are revolutionising disaster management in Sikkim
By Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham on Jun 13, 2025 02:48 pm
In the shadow of the Himalayas, where rivers roar and mountains shift, a pioneering project quietly transforms how floods and landslides are forecasted.
News: Looming cuts to energy aid fuel fear of ‘deadly’ summer
By Context on Jun 13, 2025 02:37 pm
Decades-old energy assistance program that helps millions of Americans with cooling costs is at risk as summers get hotter.
News: The Blatten landslide in Switzerland
By Yale Climate Connections on Jun 13, 2025 02:33 pm
This exceptional event triggers a wide range of scientific questions about the driving processes, the link to climate change and permafrost thawing, the in-situ and space-born monitoring of such hazard sites, the real-time forecasting, among others.
News: Mixed rainfall trends highlight the importance of climate adaptation in coastal New South Wales
By World Weather Attribution on Jun 13, 2025 02:15 pm
From May 19-23, heavy rains caused widespread flooding across eastern New South Wales. Coastal areas received over 100 mm of rain on each of these days, with especially intense rainfall on the Mid North Coast around Newcastle, Taree, and Port Macquarie.
News: Climate change drives record-breaking heat in Iceland and Greenland challenging cold adapted ecosystems and societies
By World Weather Attribution on Jun 13, 2025 02:09 pm
On May 15, Egilsstaðir Airport recorded 26.6°C, breaking the previous record for Iceland’s highest May temperature, while regions of the country saw temperatures more than 10°C above average.
News: Could beavers be the secret to winning the fight against wildfires?
By National Geographic Society on Jun 13, 2025 02:05 pm
As beavers have slowly returned to the U.S. West over the past several decades, their helpfulness has grown more appreciated—just as our climate woes have multiplied.
News: Trump to merge wildland firefighting forces, despite warning of chaos
By Guardian, the (UK) on Jun 13, 2025 02:00 pm
Order aims to centralize efforts, which are now split among five agencies and two cabinet departments.
News: Early-season heat wave in France intensified by climate change
By Climate Central on Jun 13, 2025 01:56 pm
Exceptionally intense and early summer heat is forecast to spread across France from June 12 to 16, with temperatures soaring well above normal for mid-June.
News: How is Google supporting better tropical cyclone prediction with AI
By Google on Jun 13, 2025 12:59 pm
Google DeepMind is launching Weather Lab, featuring experimental cyclone predictions, and it is partnering with the U.S. National Hurricane Center to support their forecasts and warnings this cyclone season.
DRR Community Voices: Risk communication for early action in Barbados: Findings, learnings and opportunities for scale
By Christal Benjamin on Jun 12, 2025 03:34 pm
There is an urgent need to scale up and integrate good practices for early warning and early action in Barbados, and other Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean and around the world.
News: Funding to protect American cities from extreme heat just evaporated
By Grist Magazine on Jun 12, 2025 02:59 pm
NOAA’s Center for Heat Resilient Communities would have helped cities better understand their struggles with heat — and deploy solutions for keeping residents safe.
News: Can the private sector plug the adaptation finance gap?
By Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance on Jun 12, 2025 02:48 pm
From a developed and developing government standpoint, dwindling foreign aid budgets and competing domestic pressures have made it practically and politically expedient to look to the private sector for support.
News: Mapping the unmapped: Can a crowdsourced map of the world help save millions of people from climate disaster?
By Grist Magazine on Jun 12, 2025 12:16 pm
Since its founding in 2010, some 340,000 volunteers around the world have been remotely editing OpenStreetMap to better represent the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa and other regions prone to disasters or humanitarian emergencies.
News: Stress of Superstorm Sandy affected babies in utero
By City University of New York on Jun 12, 2025 12:03 pm
Climate disasters may be leaving invisible imprints on developing brains before birth, according to new groundbreaking research from The City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY Graduate Center) and Queens College.
News: The silent killer: We need better risk governance to beat extreme heat | GP 2025
By United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) on Jun 11, 2025 04:46 pm
At a high-level special event at GP 2025, leaders from governments, international agencies, labour unions, academia, and the humanitarian sector discussed how better governance can protect people’s lives from extreme heat.
News: Oasis Cone: a scalable desert greening innovation to combat drought, saline intrusion, and food insecurity
By Carbon Blue Solutions on Jun 11, 2025 03:37 pm
Carbon Blue Solutions Limited LLC is proud to announce the Oasis Cone — a groundbreaking, patent-pending technology designed to enable the growth of mangroves and salt-tolerant crops in arid and desert environments without irrigation.
News: Nature-based solutions: The one for all answer to climate hazards
By OnlineKhabar on Jun 11, 2025 03:22 pm
Climate change poses unprecedented threats to urban and rural sustainability, demanding innovative, scalable solutions. Nature-based Solutions offer a nature-based approach to tackle multiple hazards with a single, integrated strategy.
News: Climate crisis and conflict in Sudan: when early warning also means resilience
By CIMA Foundation – Centro Internazionale in Monitoraggio Ambientale on Jun 11, 2025 03:09 pm
At the UNDRR Global Platform 2025, the discussion centred around data, technologies, and knowledge to reduce risk and save lives. But what does it actually mean to build an early warning system in a country facing both war and climate crisis?
News: How India is becoming more vulnerable to extreme weather
By Deutsche Welle on Jun 11, 2025 02:30 pm
A new study in India has shown how extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and affecting quality of life.
News: White paper finds U.S. utilities lagging on wildfire preparedness
By Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment on Jun 11, 2025 02:14 pm
Despite facing considerable wildfire risk, many power utilities have yet to adopt basic mitigation measures – endangering communities and the future energy system.
News: In California, a biomass company’s expansion raises fears of more fires
By Grist Magazine on Jun 11, 2025 01:44 pm
Facilities that make wood pellets have a track record of catching on fire. So why are there plans to build several near Yosemite’s tinderbox forests?
News: Call for nominations of experts for IPCC workshops – seventh assessment cycle
By International Science Council (ISC) on Jun 11, 2025 01:31 pm
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is calling for experts to participate in two upcoming co-located IPCC workshops: (1) Workshop on Engaging diverse knowledge systems, and (2) Workshop on Methods of assessment.
News: How can peer-to-peer partnerships solve water scarcity in Lao PDR?
By Onewater on Jun 11, 2025 01:13 pm
A peer-to-peer water partnership is bringing clean drinking water to 2,000 people in northern Laos. A new, locally owned compact water treatment plant will strengthen climate resilience, empower communities, and inspire future initiatives.
News: Why can climate resilience efforts fall through the cracks?
By Institution of Civil Engineers on Jun 11, 2025 01:04 pm
Without strong leadership, clear roles and joined-up planning, governments may fail to adapt to climate change. A new insights paper explores how governments can build climate resilient infrastructure.
News: Artificial intelligence reimagines infectious disease forecasting
By Johns Hopkins University on Jun 11, 2025 01:00 pm
A new AI tool to predict the spread of infectious disease outperforms existing state-of-the-art forecasting methods. The tool could revolutionize how public health officials predict, track, and manage outbreaks of infectious diseases.
News: 6 steps to building climate-resilient value chains through collaboration and tech-enabled adaptation
By World Economic Forum on Jun 11, 2025 12:49 pm
Responding to the pressures of climate change requires more than isolated action. Building resilience at scale means using technology to coordinate across industries, sectors and regions.
News: How a bridge reduced risk and improved lives for four communities in Madagascar
By Connecting Business initiative on Jun 11, 2025 12:46 pm
In 2022, the Private Sector Humanitarian Platform (PSHP) in Madagascar worked with partners to build a bridge over a river that often floods in the case of heavy rains. It used to claim a number of lives every year.
News: An Alaskan volcano could help scientists understand why ‘stealthy’ volcanoes erupt without warning
By Risk Frontiers Holdings Pty Ltd on Jun 11, 2025 12:14 pm
Scientists have developed a way of modelling its behavior which could more effectively monitor potential eruptions from ‘stealthy’ volcanoes and provide warning to people in the path of danger.
News: Wildfire smoke can harm your brain, not just your lungs
By Conversation Media Group, the on Jun 10, 2025 06:43 pm
Anyone who has experienced wildfire smoke knows how it can leave you with a scratchy throat, stinging eyes and impact your lungs. However, smoke can also affect your brain.
News: The goldilocks conditions for wildfires
By Eos – AGU on Jun 10, 2025 06:38 pm
Twenty years of data from around the world show that areas that are not too dry and not too wet are most conducive to wildfire burning.
News: Climate change-fueled hurricanes are increasingly destructive and costly for U.S. communities
By Center for American Progress on Jun 10, 2025 06:33 pm
More devastating climate-driven hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones are having widespread impacts—raising costs, increasing health risks, and deepening social inequities.
News: New machine learning model improves early tsunami warnings
By University of Western Ontario (Western University) on Jun 10, 2025 06:21 pm
A study buoyed traditional statistics with novel machine learning techniques, using artificial intelligence, to test early warning models for Tofino, B.C. – a popular surfing and tourist destination on Vancouver Island’s west coast.
News: FAO boosts regional cooperation and locust emergency management in South America
By Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – Headquarters on Jun 10, 2025 06:06 pm
To contribute to the ongoing efforts among stakeholders, the first-ever regional workshop on locust emergency management for Latin American countries was held from 8 to 10 April 2025 in Argentina.
News: Climate change supercharges atmospheric rivers over Antarctica
By British Antarctic Survey on Jun 10, 2025 05:44 pm
Antarctica could see a doubling of extreme weather events – such as atmospheric rivers – by 2100, with implications for future sea level rise.
News: California tsunami: Here’s where damage and casualties could be the worst
By PhysOrg, Omicron Technology Ltd on Jun 10, 2025 05:33 pm
Tsunamis pose a risk to the entire California coast. But should a major one strike, how bad could it be?
News: Even weak tropical cyclones raise infant mortality in poorer countries, USC-led research finds
By University of Southern California Dornsife on Jun 10, 2025 05:23 pm
A new study finds that even storms below hurricane strength significantly increase infant deaths in low- and middle-income countries, and not just for the reasons experts expected.
News: How to insure a surf spot and invest in the ocean
By Onewater on Jun 10, 2025 05:15 pm
Innovative parametric insurance protects Las Flores surf economy, illustrating ocean literacy, investment gaps, blended finance solutions, and effective governance needs.
News: New review uncovers how compound extreme events are becoming a hidden health crisis in China
By Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences on Jun 10, 2025 05:07 pm
A paper reveals that climate extremes are increasingly striking in combination-and their compounding impact is posing a growing threat to public health across China.
News: Trees can be flood-prevention heroes
By Yale Climate Connections on Jun 10, 2025 04:58 pm
Leaves and branches slow the rate of rain hitting the ground, and roots help prevent soil erosion.
News: That Swiss glacier collapse? It wasn’t a one-off
By Yale Climate Connections on Jun 10, 2025 04:48 pm
Climate change is greasing the skids for glacier detachments that can lead to rock-ice avalanches.
News: Adapting roads, rails and bridges to extreme heat
By Deutsche Welle on Jun 10, 2025 04:34 pm
The highways, railways and bridges that keep economies and communities thriving were not built to withstand rising temperatures. How can we stop them from melting down?
News: Innovating for resilience: Cultivating climate-ready, multifunctional landscapes through Living Labs
By Center for International Forestry Research on Jun 10, 2025 02:10 pm
In Ethiopia, farmers and scientists are teaming up to grow resilience—tree by tree
News: Radio resilience in Antigua and Barbuda: A lifeline for Small Island Developing States amid disasters and climate change
By United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Jun 10, 2025 12:09 pm
In a region prone to natural hazards, community and public broadcasters serve as lifelines. They deliver early warnings, real-time updates, and critical preparedness information, often to remote communities with limited internet access.
News: From work to transportation, extreme heat is reshaping urban life
By World Resources Institute on Jun 10, 2025 10:55 am
In cities around the world, extreme heat is no longer a short-term event or seasonal disruption. It’s a growing daily pressure that is reshaping how people live, move and work – and it’s getting worse.