The state of knowledge on disaster risk

The paper reviews the evolution of disaster risk science, shifting from an emergency management focus to a proactive disaster risk reduction (DRR) approach. It analyzes the interplay between hazards, exposure, and vulnerability, while highlighting the emergence of systemic and Anthropocene risks. The authors identify significant geographical imbalances in research production, with a heavy reliance on Western scholarship and a lack of data from Africa and low-to-middle income countries. It calls for greater integration of DRR with climate change adaptation (CCA) and a stronger focus on disaster justice and indigenous knowledge.

• Disaster risk science has shifted from an 'ex-post' approach focused on responding to events to an 'ex-ante' focus on proactively managing and reducing risks, conceptualizing risk as a function of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability.
• There is a significant geographical imbalance in the production of disaster science literature; between 1970 and 2020, only 3% of results in a Scopus search originated from Africa, while the United States (21.8%), China (9.8%), and the United Kingdom (6.4%) dominated publications.
• Modern risk conceptualizations are moving toward 'systemic' and 'Anthropocene' risks, which emphasize interdependency, non-linear interactions, and the role of human-environment interactions and global telecoupling processes.
• While disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) share goals regarding vulnerability and resilience, they remain siloed due to different governance structures, funding coordination, and separate international agreements from 2015.
• Disaster justice is an emerging field that addresses social inequality and power distribution, arguing for fairness in policies and a 'moral claim on governance' to address the root causes of vulnerability.
• Current risk assessment methods often rely on a 'reductionist approach' focusing on physical hazards and economic impacts, creating a need for new frameworks that address compound events and use 'event-based storylines' to handle deep uncertainties.
• There is a critical gap in the inclusion of diverse epistemologies, with dominant risk framings derived primarily from Western scholarship, necessitating the integration of indigenous, traditional, and locally-led research.

APA

Tran, M., & Boyland, M. (2022). The state of knowledge on disaster risk. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/irdr-working-paper-literat-review.pdf

Chicago

Tran, Minh, and Michael Boyland. The state of knowledge on disaster risk. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2022. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/irdr-working-paper-literat-review.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tran |first1=Minh |last2=Boyland |first2=Michael |title=The state of knowledge on disaster risk |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2022 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/irdr-working-paper-literat-review.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tran2022state, author = {Tran, Minh and Boyland, Michael}, title = {{The state of knowledge on disaster risk}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/irdr-working-paper-literat-review.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }