Issue Insights
Explore practical information and analyses of types of disasters, related issues, affected communities, recovery strategies and how donors can help.
Famine
According to the United Nations’ definition, a “famine” has taken hold when: at least 20 percent of households in an area face extreme food shortages; more than two people in 10,000 are dying each day (from both lack of food and reduced immunity to disease); and more than 30 percent of the population is experiencing acute malnutrition.
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Artists
Disaster preparation can be a tough sell in any community. But craft artists—and artists of all types—are a unique population. Learn more.
Chemical Emergencies
A chemical emergency involves the discharge or release of hazardous liquids, gases or solids. It can happen as a result of an industrial accident, failed infrastructure or an intentional attack.
Children and Youth
For children and youth, disasters can take both an emotional and a physical toll, different from how those disasters would affect adults.
Climate Change
Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation or wind patterns, among other effects, that occur over several decades or longer.
Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
CHEs involve an acute emergency layered over ongoing instability. Multiple scenarios can cause CHEs, like the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, the man-made political crisis in Venezuela, or the conflict in Ukraine.
Critical Infrastructure and Systems
Critical Infrastructure and Systems (CIS) are the structures people rely on to perform their everyday tasks. They are what keep people, goods and information moving around the world while also keeping people safe and healthy.
Derecho
A derecho is a line of intense, long-lived and widespread thunderstorms that move quickly across a long distance.
Disaster Phases
Disasters affect millions of people and cause billions of dollars in damage globally each year. To help understand and manage disasters, practitioners, academics and government agencies frame disasters in phases.
Drought
Drought is often defined as an unusual period of drier than normal weather that leads to a water shortage. Drought causes more deaths and displaces more people than any other disaster.
Earthquakes
Striking without warning, earthquakes often are among the most devastating disasters. Caused by the movement of plates along fault lines on the earth’s surface, earthquakes often leave a monumental path of instant death and destruction.