Day for environmental disaster reduction, impact data and prevention

Every year, disasters affect millions of people and cause significant economic damage. But their impact does not only depend on the strength of earthquakes, floods, cyclones or heat waves. The place where you live, the quality of buildings, land planning, warning systems and the ability to intervene before the event turns into a catastrophe also determine how many people will die, how many homes will be destroyed and how long it will take to return to normality.

Progress and critical issues

This is the theme of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction which is celebrated on 13 October. For 2026 the United Nations has chosen the slogan "Resilience Starts at Home", with a focus on the safety of homes and the ability of families to prepare and react to extreme events.

The latest available UNDRR data, updated in 2026 and referring mainly to the period 2016-2025, show some progress but also critical issues. In the comparison between the decade 2005-2014 and 2016-2025, the average mortality rate caused by disasters decreased by 65%, going from 2.12 to 0.75 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants. Between 2016 and 2025, however, disasters resulted in an average of around 37,900 deaths each year.

The impact on people and the economy

During the same period, the number of people affected increased. The rate of population affected by a disaster went from 1,227 to 2,449 people per 100 thousand inhabitants compared to the previous decade, with an increase of approximately 100%. According to data reported by countries to the United Nations, an average of around 100 million people were affected each year between 2016 and 2025.

The economic impact is also significant. In the decade 2016-2025, direct economic losses declared exceeded one trillion dollars, while in the same period a total of approximately 929 thousand infrastructure units were damaged or destroyed and over 1.6 million interruptions to basic services were recorded.

These, UNDRR underlines, are data declared by the countries and therefore a partial snapshot of the overall impact of the disasters. Risk reduction, in most cases, comes above all from prevention: it means building safer buildings, avoiding new constructions in the most exposed areas, securing slopes and waterways, preparing emergency plans and developing monitoring and warning systems.

Warning systems

Early warning systems are one of the areas in which progress has been made. In 2015 there were 55 countries that declared they had multi-risk early warning systems, in 2026 they became 128. The presence of a system, however, does not necessarily guarantee its effectiveness: 62 countries still evaluate its effectiveness as limited or moderate. According to the UNDRR, disaster-related mortality is almost six times lower in countries with more comprehensive multi-hazard warning systems than in those with limited capacity.

The United Nations' goal is to ensure that every person in the world is protected by early warning systems by 2027, through the "Early Warnings for All" initiative, launched in 2022. An effective system, however, does not just consist of predicting a phenomenon: the warning must reach the exposed people, be understandable and allow them to adopt appropriate behavior before the event occurs.