Disaster — Climate Words

Disaster

DEFINITION
Frontline Expert

Definition coming soon!

RESEARCH
Research by Micheala Chan
Fact-checking by Hailey Basiouny

A disaster is a serious disruption to a community or society caused when a hazardous event interacts with exposure, vulnerability and limited capacity, leading to human, economic or environmental losses. In global datasets, this typically includes geophysical, meteorological and climate‑related events such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides, droughts, wildfires, storms and flooding.
A disaster is the sum of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. This means that hazards (natural or man-made) only become disasters when they impact communities that are not adequately protected, or whose populations are vulnerable as a result of poverty, exclusion, or social disadvantage. Shrugging off a catastrophic event as a “natural disaster” is refusing to take responsibility for the deliberate decisions and actions that can be taken to mitigate damage and destruction.
Disasters kill approximately 40,000 to 50,000 people per year (an average over the last decade). Disasters can also lead to displacement and economic costs which can be hard to recover from, particularly in lower-income countries. However, deaths from disasters have fallen significantly over the last century as a result of early warning systems, better infrastructure, more productive agriculture, and coordinated responses.
Cascading disasters happen when one crisis triggers another, creating a chain reaction that makes things worse. Most disasters from now on will be cascading to some extent, given how interconnected the world is. Understanding how events connect with society’s weak points can help us prevent small problems from becoming full-blown crises. Additionally, strengthening infrastructure and emergency responses helps reduce the risk of cascading effects.
The classic disaster management cycle is divided into four phases: mitigation (reducing risks), preparedness (planning response efforts), response (protecting lives and property during a disaster), and recovery (restoring normalcy post-disaster). Several alternative models also exist, with some including up to seven stages. However, there have been critiques over this simplification, including that the model appears to be too linear to accurately represent crises which can be more complex.
Healthy ecosystems are crucial for disaster risk reduction through their provision of ecosystem services, influencing hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. Healthy ecosystems can support resilience and other functions like climate regulation and hazard buffering.
Big data enables analysis of vast information flows, supporting each phase of the disaster management cycle. There are many data sources, including remote sensing, GPS, mobile networks, and social media. However, there are also associated challenges like data quality, privacy concerns, interoperability, and a need for skilled personnel and robust infrastructure. (4)
News networks are selective in their coverage and attention, tending to look for disasters that are “rife with drama”, rather than reflect the severity and number of people killed or affected. This bias for the spectacular is irresponsible and misleading, with the potential to misallocate attention and aid. For example, gradual disasters allow for more time for preventative action, but their gradual nature prevents them from gaining the media attention they deserve.
The Sendai Framework aims to guide the multi-hazard management of disaster risk in development at all levels and within and across all sectors. It outlines seven global targets to be achieved between 2015 and 2030. It also sets four priority areas for focussed action, namely: understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
Economic policies are manipulated in times of crisis to exploit shocks like wars or disaster, in a phenomenon known as “disaster capitalism”. In “peacetime”, people are much less likely to accept policies like privatisation, deregulation, and cutbacks to public spending, knowing that these would mean a transfer of wealth and power to elites. Unfortunately history demonstrates that government actors often take advantage of crises, and hese radical economic reforms are often rapidly implemented during times of crisis. Awareness and activism are crucial to fight back against disaster capitalism.
Gotong royong is an Indonesian concept meaning mutual assistance. The aftermath of the Lombok earthquake in 2018 shows how this tradition of mutual aid becomes a powerful engine for recovery. Villagers, leaders, businesses and NGOs rebuilt together through voluntary cooperation, shared labour, cross‑community solidarity, and transparent local leadership, even as tensions emerged when authorities tried to rebrand compulsory work as gotong royong.

1
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). 2017. The Sendai Framework Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction. "Disaster".
2
Our World In Data. “Natural Disasters Data Explorer.” n.d, Our World In Data.
3
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). “#NoNaturalDisasters.” UNDRR, November 28, 2023.
4
Ritchie, Hannah, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser. “Natural Disasters.” Our World In Data, 2022.
5
Pescaroli, Gianluca, and David Alexander. “What Are Cascading Disasters?” UCL Open Environment, August 8, 2019.
6
Yu, Manzhu, Chaowei Yang, and Yun Li. “Big Data in Natural Disaster Management: A Review.” Geosciences 8, no. 5 (May 5, 2018):
7
The Humanitarian Innovation Guide. “Disaster Management Cycle.” higuide.elrha.org, n.d.
8
Janzen, S., L. Narvaez, A. Ortiz-Vargas, J. O‘Connor, Y. Walz, and Z. Sebesvari. “Ecosystem and Disaster Risk: A Review of Ecological Indicators in the Context of Disaster Risk Assessments and Discussion of Their Usefulness to Inform Ecosystem Health.” Nature-Based Solutions 8 (July 27, 2025): 100260.
9
Tzvetkova, Sandra. “Not all deaths are equal: How many deaths make a natural disaster newsworthy?” Our World In Data, 2018.
10
UNDRR. “Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.” UNDRR, 2015.
11
Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2008.
12
Koopman, Jop. “The Restoration of Gotong Royong as a Form of Post-Disaster Solidarity in Lombok, Indonesia.” South East Asia Research, September 9, 2021, 1–18.