Droughts, floods and wildfires are causing thousands of deaths in Europe alone, and have great consequences on economies and human development. And there’s no sign of stopping either; science shows that these events will increase as the climate crisis unfolds. RECEIPT’s Jaroslav Mysiak was among the 300 disaster risk management experts joining forces with the European Commission to reduce our vulnerabilities to disasters.

To limit the impacts of future extreme events to a minimum, the European Commission has teamed up with over 300 experts. Together, they studied the impacts of disasters to tackle vulnerability and exposure. Their report ‘Science for Disaster Risk Management 2020: acting today, protecting tomorrow’ was just published. It aims to move from identifying problems to identifying solutions and approaches for action. The authors made a series of recommendations aimed towards policymakers, practitioners, scientists and citizens. You can find them in the report’s summary.

Jaroslav Mysiak is the director of the CMCC research division ‘Risk assessment and adaptation strategies’ and leads RECEIPT’s work package on International Development.

An important aspect of disaster risk management is considering the economic losses from extreme events. Jaroslav Mysiak participated in the report as coordinating lead author and was asked to lead the study’s research on economic sectors. To have effective disaster risk management, we need to improve our understanding of how various events affect economies, both directly and indirectly.

Jaro and the team explored the impacts of a variety of hazards. Physical damage to infrastructures, costs of repairing and cleaning, disturbed supply chains, but also yield losses or cattle mortality… The financial impacts of an extreme event can take many forms. And they can spread very quickly from one sector or country to the next. Being able to quantify these losses is not only important to compensate those who suffered losses, but also to identify measures to be taken before the disaster occurs. Adopting prevention, mitigation and adaptation measures can reduce our vulnerability to future disasters.

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Published on : 07 April 2021