The latest DRR & Open Data Newsletter clearly demonstrates how digital technologies, open data, and new analytical approaches are fundamentally transforming our understanding of risks, climate dynamics, and disaster impacts. Satellites, sensors, and AI are increasingly forming a “digital nervous system” of the Earth, making environmental changes, emissions, water availability, and land use visible almost in real time — thereby creating new foundations for evidence-based decision-making.
At the same time, numerous contributions illustrate how closely climate change, water cycles, extreme heat, landscape fires, and coastal erosion are interconnected. Studies show that river deltas are subsiding faster than sea levels are rising, that humidity can significantly intensify heat waves, and that the non-financial consequences of landscape fires extend far beyond direct damage.
Another key focus lies on the role of crisis data, open data standards (FAIR principles), and AI-based applications for damage assessment, early warning, and more effective disaster response. Initiatives such as CRAF’d and new approaches using vision-language models demonstrate how data can save lives — when it is accessible, trustworthy, and meaningfully usable.
The newsletter thus spans a broad range of topics, from global environmental changes and urban resilience to water infrastructure and innovative scientific and technological approaches in disaster risk reduction.
The complete Newsletter can be found here.
(Image source: AI-generated)