Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Risk management alone fails to limit the impact of extreme climate events

An analysis of floods or droughts that hit the same place twice shows that using risk management alone does not reduce the effect of extreme events. Addressing the social drivers of hazard impact, equitably, is essential.
  1. Beth Tellman

    1. Beth Tellman is in the School of Geography, Development & Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85719, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Hallie Eakin

    1. Hallie Eakin is in the School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Floods and droughts seem to be occurring with increasing frequency and severity, pushing the limits of society’s ability to prepare for these extreme events through prediction and effective adaptation. We would like to believe that we learn from each disaster, and are thus better adapted to handle the next one. But is this really the case? In a paper in Nature, Kreibich et al.1 examine 45 places where an extreme flood or drought happened twice, and determine whether risk-management strategies successfully reduced the impact of the second disaster. The authors’ analysis suggests that adaptation is nearly always limited, and that the impact of a second event is not reduced by risk-management strategies when the event is more extreme than the first one.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 608, 41-43 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02031-0

References

  1. Kreibich, H. et al. Nature 608, 80–86 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ishtiaque, A., Estoque, R. C., Eakin, H., Parajuli, J. & Rabby, Y. W. J. Environ. Mgmt 303, 114246 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Thomas, K. et al. WIREs Clim. Change 10, e565 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Nelson, D. R. & Finan, T. J. Am. Anthropol. 111, 302–316 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Nelson, D. R., Lemos, M. C., Eakin, H. & Lo, Y.-J. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 094011 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Tellman, B. et al. Nature 596, 80–86 (2021).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Wing, O. E. J. et al. Nature Clim. Change 12, 156–162 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Nohrstedt, D., Hileman, J., Mazzoleni, M., Di Baldassarre, G. & Parker, C. F. Nature Commun. 13, 3360 (2022).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Berrang-Ford, L. et al. Nature Clim. Change 11, 989–1000 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Eriksen, S. et al. World Dev. 141, 105383 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Belury, L. Geogr. Rev. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2022.2061858 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Eakin, H. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 186–189 (2017).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Ajibade, I. J. & Siders, A. R. (eds) Global Views on Climate Relocation and Social Justice: Navigating Retreat (Routledge, 2021).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Newell, P., Srivastava, S., Naess, L. O., Torres Contreras, G. A. & Price, R. WIREs Clim. Change 12, e733 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. IPCC. Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2022).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Surminski, S., Bouwer, L. M. & Linnerooth-Bayer, J. Nature Clim. Change 6, 333–334 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Huq, S., Roberts, E. & Fenton, A. Nature Clim. Change 3, 947–949 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links