
After having to postpone an in-person learning event that was meant to bring members from across the whole Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance together we brought our knowledge sharing online. This blog summarises our key learning and recommendations if you’re forced to do the same.
March 15 marks the first anniversary of Cyclone Idai’s devastating charge through Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique (which was hit again a month later by Cyclone Kenneth, the strongest cyclone to ever hit the country). Cyclone Idai, which brought with it devastating winds, floods and landslides, was the world’s largest humanitarian disaster in 2019. More than 1,350 people lost their lives and over 3 million were affected, many of whom are still feeling the effects a whole year later.
The Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance promotes alternative ways to reduce flood risks and build communities’ resilience. Nature-based solutions are one of the most promising approaches to achieve these goals, thanks to the multiple co-benefits they can offer. Still these interventions are relatively uncommon, especially in cities.
When trying to adapt and live with largely unpredictable natural phenomena and hazards, having clear, reliable, and timely information makes for a better prepared community. But what is our role as citizens in generating this information? In this blog you will learn how community members in the Rímac River Basin, near Lima, Peru, collaborate with national authorities to generate more complete and detailed information on precipitation.
The severe flooding over the last two weeks in parts of Wales and England which destroyed homes, businesses and livelihoods provides further evidence that flood risk is rising, but not along with our ability to mitigate it. And in West Yorkshire, the failed attempt to install temporary barriers in place of a £30m flood defence under construction subjected the town of Mytholmroyd to a severe deluge, making it clear that a wider flood resilience strategy is urgently needed.
By any measure, 2020 has been a shocker for humanity. In this blog Practical Action's Colin McQuistan reflects on the challenges we've faced, and those we need to gear up to tackle as we app...
Back to the future: planning for long term impacts part one. This is the first in a series of four blogs about long term impacts of Practical Action’s work where we ask: what can we lea...
Back to the future: planning for long term impacts part two. In this second of four blogs on lasting changes, we discuss durability factors based on completed Disaster Risk Reduction proj...
Back to the future: planning for long term impacts part three. In this third of four blogs on lasting changes, we discuss what we can do now to better embed “long term” thinking in ou...