A new framework to count the cost of disasters to nature

When disasters occur, significant effort is dedicated to calculating the losses and damages. These have traditionally focused on hard economic assets, such as homes, infrastructure, farms, and factories. While important drivers of growth and development, these losses are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the full impact of disasters.

While officially reported global direct economic losses stand at approximately $202 billion annually, the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025 estimates that the true cost of disasters rises to more than $2.3 trillion when indirect, cascading and ecosystem impacts are taken into account.

Without taking into account the extent of ecosystem losses, policymakers will be left with an incomplete picture. This has ripple effects on plans and policies that do not fully incorporate more wide-ranging actions that reduce disaster costs and their impacts on development. Moreover, this requires considering both the material value of natural resources and the non-material benefits of ecosystem services. These include climate regulation, disaster risk reduction, cultural significance, and supporting services such as nutrient cycling and soil formation. Maintaining these services depends on protecting the biodiversity that underpins healthy ecosystems.

Yet even when policymakers seek to account for these losses, there is no standard framework to guide them. To address this gap, UNDRR partnered with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to develop a framework for assessing climate change and disaster-related losses of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

A structured approach to understanding losses

The new framework provides a structured way to assess how disasters and climate change affect ecosystems by examining two core components: the hazards, and the ecosystem and biodiversity context.

The hazard context spans a continuum from extreme and sudden-onset events, such as floods and storms, to slow-onset events, such as sea level rise, higher temperatures, and glacial retreat. The ecosystem and biodiversity context focuses on three interrelated dimensions: ecosystem extent, ecosystem condition, including biodiversity, and the diverse values of nature, and ecosystem services.

By using reference-level or baseline information, the framework lays out an approach to assessing losses using comparisons between ecosystem conditions before and after hazardous events. For extreme and sudden-onset events, losses are assessed by comparing pre-event and post-event conditions. For example, vegetation along riverbanks can be monitored before and after a flood, with reductions in plant cover or ecosystem productivity indicating potential losses.

Slow-onset events require different considerations as there is no clear starting or end point. The framework demonstrates how assessments are possible, using time slices based on data availability. It also strengthens the case for long-term monitoring to detect negative changes over time for more accurate pictures. For example, monitoring coral reef extent and condition over time can help detect losses related to ocean warming and acidification.

For both approaches, the framework promotes the collection of quantitative and qualitative data from multiple sources, including satellite and remote sensing data, field measurements, and indigenous and local knowledge.

Turning data into knowledge and action

To gain insights and knowledge from this data, the framework identifies the Disaster & Hazardous Events, Losses and Damages Tracking & Analysis (DELTA) Resilience system as “a key implementation platform.” Released in 2025, this next-generation disaster tracking system was developed by UNDRR, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), to strengthen the capacity of countries to collect and analyse data on hazardous events and related losses and damages. By incorporating biodiversity and ecosystem services losses into this system, countries can build a more comprehensive understanding of climate change and disaster impacts, including non-economic losses.

This understanding should be used to inform decision-making on how to reduce climate- and disaster-related losses, better manage ecosystems and natural resources, and support prevention and resilient recovery efforts by identifying where nature-based solutions and restoration interventions are most needed. By extension, this would support the implementation and monitoring of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. 

Moreover, improving accounting for climate and disaster-related losses can help developing countries articulate their evidence-based needs and access new streams of international financing, for instance, the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage.

Next steps for a shared understanding and greater cooperation

This framework presents an opportunity to enhance how countries track the impact of disasters and climate change on nature, but it is only a first step. The first application of the framework is taking place in the Philippines; the lessons and experience will be instrumental in shaping the next phase as it is roll-out in different countries.

Applying the framework across a wide range of settings will help refine it for more practical applications. In turn, it will strengthen methodologies, metrics and indicators to capture ecosystem-specific variables, and simultaneously enhance regular environmental monitoring. 

Coupled with the Global Disaster-Related Statistics Framework (G-DRSF), recently endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission, the framework accelerates the global move towards a more standardised approach for assessing and understanding the cascading and indirect impacts of disasters. This will help lay the foundation for a shared understanding of risks, and hopefully, greater cooperation within and between countries to reduce the burden of disasters on people, the planet and prosperity.