Methodologies & Data Standards

DELTA Resilience is an open-source toolkit for countries to track hazardous events linked to their human, economic, and non-economic impacts using internationally aligned terminology, well-established methodologies for losses and damages assessment, and hazard taxonomies. It is designed to track hazardous events, disasters and their effects across sectors—not to dispatch emergency response—so countries can analyze trends and patterns, calibrate risk models, plan investments, and inform policies. There are no minimum thresholds for recording: localized, cascading, slow-onset and rapid-onset events can all be documented consistently across sectors and scales.

Alignment with the forthcoming Global Disaster-Related Statistics Framework (G-DRSF)

DELTA Resilience is structured to be consistent with the emerging G-DRSF, operationalizing shared definitions, classifications, and comparability rules so countries can produce comparable official disaster- and climate-impact statistics. It promotes standardized event classification (e.g., UNDRR/ISC 2025 Hazard Information Profiles and WMO - CHE methodologies), multidimensional disaggregation, and governance practices that link disaster risk management agencies, hydrometeorological and geological services, and national statistics offices - improving data quality, coverage, and interoperability across time and space.

Tracking Non-economic losses

Building on the forthcoming FRAME-ECO developed with UNEP and UNU-EHS, DELTA Resilience enables assessment of losses to biodiversity and ecosystem services by comparing post-event change against reference levels of ecosystem extent, condition (including biodiversity) and the diverse values of nature. It works for both extreme and slow-onset contexts (e.g., sea-level rise, ocean acidification), supports continuous monitoring, and overlays hazardous event footprints with ecosystem metrics to quantify losses that matter for people and nature.

In parallel, the data model captures human effects with compound disaggregation - age, sex and disability (and, where nationally defined, gender) recorded together for variables such as deaths, injuries and missing persons - and introduces time-stamped displacement variables. Displacement metrics follow and build on the emerging IOM–IDMC disaster displacement indicators for DRR, aligning disaster event records with standardized characteristics of disaster induced displacement patterns.

Data model, scope, and methods

The data model links hazardous events to disaster events and records with relevant sector classifications (social, productive, infrastructure, cross-cutting) and advanced disaggregation, including displacement with time-stamps. It captures qualitative context (e.g., early warning/early action, response operations) and supports compound/cascading relationships (e.g., NaTech chains). As countries integrate exposure, vulnerability data, and sector statistics ( e.g. on supply an demand for productive sectors), the system enables valuation of damage and estimation of losses across scenarios, building on PDNA/DALA approaches.

Open Source Software solution

DELTA Resilience open-source software is a modular, open-source system for recording hazardous events and associated losses and damages, developed by UNDRR with partners and offered for countries to deploy as nationally owned instances. A beta release, launched in June 2025 is available upon request with three pre-configured dashboards for hazard, sector, and disaster-event views to accelerate analysis and support reporting.

Countries can self-host on-premises or in a secure cloud, administer roles and validation workflows, and retain full control over data sharing; the stack typically uses PostgreSQL/PostGIS and Node.js with SMTP, domain/subdomain, and SSL, and is distributed under the Apache License 2.0. To protect data and ensure trust, the architecture supports role-based access control, encryption, audit logs, and other UN-standard cybersecurity practices.

For legacy data from Desinventar Sendai, an API-based extract-transform-load tool ( DiX) maps DesInventar records to the new data model and updated classifications, with guidance available and adaptation options for other formats. The software system is mobile-first today, with a roadmap for a native offline app and integrations with survey tools to sync field data from low-connectivity areas, and UNDRR is refactoring the application toward an optional SaaS delivery for contexts with limited IT capacity.

To learn more visit the deltaresilience.org

Capacity Development & Technical Assistance

DELTA’s capacity development goes beyond software installation. UNDRR, together with core partners UNDP and WMO, supports countries to strengthen governance, methods, and skills for tracking hazardous events and associated losses and damages. A recommended first step is a Data Ecosystem Maturity Assessment to diagnose data governance and value-chain gaps; the findings inform a country-specific rollout plan and can underpin proposals to mobilize partners and financing.

Countries that reach out receive an orientation to the DELTA toolkit, with training modules, technical guidance, and tutorials made available progressively—including via digital and interactive platforms. Capacity support is tailored to context and needs, and may focus on governance, methodological development, or technical skills rather than software per se.

Institutionalization is a core objective of capacity work. This includes assigning clear roles and responsibilities, embedding processes in legal or policy frameworks where relevant, establishing regular data collection and validation workflows, and building the technical and human capacities to manage, analyze, and use data for planning, decision-making, reporting, and accountability. System features such as configurable roles, validation steps, and audit trails support these practices and are aligned with nationally approved procedures. Partnerships extend this offer. Depending on use cases—such as impact-based early warning and early action—specialized partners and initiatives can be mobilized. Regional organizations, NGOs, and academia are encouraged to contribute through capacity development, technical assistance, and research/innovation, complementing government leadership of national systems. UNDRR also provides migration guidance and technical documentation to help teams carry legacy data into DELTA’s model as part of a managed change process

Partnerships

The DELTA Resilience initiative - including the DELTA Open Source Software - is led by a tripartite coalition of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This joint effort builds on each organization’s comparative strengths - normative guidance, technical excellence, and in-country program delivery - recognized by Member States as essential to advancing global disaster risk reduction and climate resilience agendas.

Leveraging this collective mandate and trusted country presence, the lead agencies mobilize partners, align investments in data for sustainable development, and strengthen synergies with flagship initiatives such as the UN Secretary-General’s Early Warnings for All (EW4All). Partnerships are also shaped to support the UN Secretary-General’s Data Strategy and the UNDRR Data Strategy, ensuring responsible, interoperable, and impactful data use.

Theme-specific collaborations reinforce data standards and methodological innovation—for example on non-economic losses and ecosystem impacts with UNU-EHS and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP); on slow-onset processes; on disaster displacement with the International Organization for Migration (IOM); and on sector-specific loss and damage metrics with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and others.

Research, academic, and technical organizations contribute through co-development, pilots, and knowledge exchange to strengthen both the methodology and the software stack. Contributors include the ITC Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (University of Twente), 510 – an initiative of the Netherlands Red Cross, the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), CIMA Research Foundation, the World Food Programme (WFP), Youth Innovation Lab, the UN Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT), and the UN International Computing Centre (UNICC), among others—collectively enhancing tools, practices, and evidence on disaster impacts.

Use cases - Data applications