In his PrepTalk, Francis Ghesquiere presents a global perspective on the need to improve disaster resilience. He highlights the scale of the challenge, from rapid urbanization in areas at risk of earthquakes and floods, to the increasing frequency and intensity of storms. He discusses the need for all sectors to participate in planning and to incorporate future trends in population growth, urbanization, and increasing risk due to future environmental conditions. Ghesquiere heads the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), a global partnership hosted by the World Bank with programs in more than 80 countries. In a recent report, The making of a riskier future: How our decisions are shaping future disaster risk, the GFDRR demonstrates how “tomorrow’s risk is being built today. We must therefore move away from risk assessments that show risk at a single point in the present and move instead towards risk assessments that can guide decision makers towards a resilient future.” Ghesquiere focuses on the importance of this future perspective in his PrepTalk.
Related Resources
- PrepTalks Discussion Guide: The Making of a Resilient Future
- GFFDR: The making of a riskier future: How our decisions are shaping future disaster risk
- FEMA 2018-2022 Strategic Plan
- FEMA’s Strategic Foresight initiative – a high level introduction on trends impacting emergency management.
- FEMA Hazus is a nationally applicable standardized methodology that contains models for estimating physical, economic and social impacts from earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes.
- NOAA Coastal Resilience Mapping Portal – an online tool to help users visualize future flod risks from sea level rise and storm surge.
- Department of Homeland Security Strategic Principles for Securing the Internet of Things
- Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program
- UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) PreventionWeb, a collaborative knowledge sharing platform on disaster risk reduction, United States of America pages.
- Dr. Philip Berke’s PrepTalk: “Land Use Planning for Community Resilience”
- Dr. Dennis Mileti’s PrepTalk: “Modernizing Public Warning Messaging”
- US Census Bureau: We are a Changing Nation: A Series on Population Trends
Q & A Session
PrepTalks are given by subject-matter experts and thoughts leaders to spread new ideas, spark conversation, and promote innovative leadership for the issues confronting emergency managers now and over the next 20 years. For more information and more talks, see https://www.fema.gov/preptalks
