In November 2023, Technical Expert representatives from the UK Disaster Science community attended a workshop organised by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to discuss the challenges and methods of assessing the impact of slow-onset events (SOEs) like sea level rise, drought, and desertification.
Understanding the risk of hazardous events, including SOE disaster loss and damage data, is critical to decision-making, risk management and benchmarking progress reviews in risk reduction and resilience initiatives. Significant data gaps remain despite significant global progress with international databases like EM-DAT and national databases like DesInventar. The workshop highlighted the difficulties in collecting, accessing, and applying data on SOEs, such as the absence of clear definitions, thresholds, and baselines and these events’ complex interactions and cascading effects. The participants agreed on several next steps, such as developing an issue brief, enhancing capacities, reviewing and testing assessment methods, and demonstrating use cases.
The summary from the workshop and presentations are now available online.