Disaster Risk Intelligence
Disaster Science helps businesses, organizations, and public sector teams understand where they're vulnerable to disruption, and what to do about it. We combine disaster risk data, operational analysis, and applied research to turn complex risk into clear priorities and practical action.
The Business Case
As climate change intensifies, disruptions are no longer rare. They're recurring. And the data is unambiguous: organizations without a preparedness plan don't avoid the cost, they absorb more of it. Public services stall. Supply chains break. Communities lose access to the things they rely on. The question isn't if disruption comes. It's whether you're still operating when it does.
The preparedness gap is measurable.
Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation & Verizon, national survey of 2,005 small and mid-sized business owners, fielded March 2026.
And disruption has a measurable economic cost that goes beyond any one business. A study modeling widespread power interruptions across an Illinois utility service area found that a one-day interruption was associated with an estimated $1.8 billion reduction in three-month regional GDP. Three-day and fourteen-day interruptions were associated with estimated losses of $3.7 billion and $15.2 billion. The same research found that increasing backup power availability moderated a meaningful share of those losses.
Source: Nature Communications, “A method to estimate the economy-wide consequences of widespread, long-duration electric power interruptions,” 2025.
From Global Risk to Your Organization
Two organizations can sit in the same flood zone and experience completely different consequences. The hazard is identical. The vulnerability isn’t.
That's why Disaster Science doesn't stop at hazard maps. We connect place, operations, dependencies, and preparedness to build a more useful picture of organizational risk.
Your Data, Your Risk Profile
An assessment is only useful if it's actually about you. Ours is built around three commitments.
We work from your location, your operations, your critical dependencies, your workforce, and your existing preparedness, not a template built for someone else's business.
Your risk profile reflects your specific combination of exposure, vulnerability, and capacity. The goal isn't to tell every organization the same thing. It's to answer what matters most for you.
Risk data can reveal sensitive details about your facilities and operations. We collect only what an analysis requires, limit access to authorized users, and apply consent and anonymization practices when data informs research.
What We Do
We move organizations through four stages.
Identify the hazards, infrastructure, dependencies, and disruption pathways that matter to your organization or community.
Risk data tells you what can happen. We examine why disruption would affect you, and which dependencies would make it worse.
Not every vulnerability deserves the same investment. We rank the gaps with the greatest consequence into a practical plan.
Preparedness isn't a document you write once. We help organizations implement, test, and revisit it over time.
Our Solutions
Understand where your organization is exposed, where vulnerabilities exist, and which risks deserve attention first.
The result: a clearer understanding of where you're vulnerable, why it matters, and what deserves attention first.
Turn identified risks into practical preparedness and continuity capabilities built around how your organization actually operates.
The result: a preparedness program built around your actual operations, not a generic template.
Not every organization needs a full disaster preparedness department. Some need experienced disaster risk expertise available when they need it.
The result: specialized disaster risk capability without building the entire function internally.
We're developing an interactive platform that brings location-based hazard information, organizational vulnerabilities, and preparedness indicators into one system, so a baseline can be tracked over time.
Status: platform capabilities are being developed and validated through our applied research program. Get in touch to help pilot it.
Who We Serve
Understand risk, protect critical operations, prepare employees, and develop practical continuity strategies.
Build disaster risk and continuity capabilities across facilities, programs, locations, and stakeholders.
Support disaster risk assessment, preparedness, adaptation planning, research, and implementation.
Understand vulnerability, identify capacity gaps, and develop practical approaches to reducing disruption.
Research That Supports This Work
Disaster Science studies how communities, organizations, and ecosystems experience disruption, and how preparedness, adaptation, and environmental interventions shape outcomes.
How coastal communities adapt to flooding, storms, sea-level rise, and changing environmental conditions.
Investigating how wetlands, mangroves, living shorelines, and other ecological systems reduce disaster risk.
Understanding how small and mid-sized businesses prepare for disruption and recover after disasters.
Examining how disaster-induced displacement can alter exposure to exploitation, instability, and other social risks.
Researching how environmental change influences decisions to stay, relocate, or return.
Developing practical indicators and interactive tools that translate complex disaster-risk data into usable information.
Our nature based work is a signature offering in its own right. Explore Nature Based Solutions.
You don't need to know exactly what you need yet. Tell us where you operate, what concerns you, and what decision you're trying to make. We'll help determine the right place to start.
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