Accelerating resiliency planning in communities across the Commonwealth

Search

Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative

Home » Community Action » Emergency Management » Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative

Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative

Home » Community Action » Emergency Management » Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative

NASdisaster resilience rep

No person or place is immune from disasters or disaster-related losses. Infectious disease outbreaks, acts of terrorism, social unrest, or financial disasters in addition to natural hazards can all lead to large-scale consequences for the nation and its communities. Communities and the nation thus face difficult fiscal, social, cultural, and environmental choices about the best ways to ensure basic security and quality of life against hazards, deliberate attacks, and disasters. Beyond the unquantifiable costs of injury and loss of life from disasters, statistics for 2011 alone indicate economic damages from natural disasters in the United States exceeded $55 billion, with 14 events costing more than a billion dollars in damages each.

One way to reduce the impacts of disasters on the nation and its communities is to invest in enhancing resilience–the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative addresses the broad issue of increasing the nation’s resilience to disasters. This book defines “national resilience”, describes the state of knowledge about resilience to hazards and disasters, and frames the main issues related to increasing resilience in the United States. It also provide goals, baseline conditions, or performance metrics for national resilience and outlines additional information, data, gaps, and/or obstacles that need to be addressed to increase the nation’s resilience to disasters. Additionally, the book’s authoring committee makes recommendations about the necessary approaches to elevate national resilience to disasters in the United States.

Enhanced resilience allows better anticipation of disasters and better planning to reduce disaster losses-rather than waiting for an event to occur and paying for it afterward. Disaster Resilience confronts the topic of how to increase the nation’s resilience to disasters through a vision of the characteristics of a resilient nation in the year 2030. Increasing disaster resilience is an imperative that requires the collective will of the nation and its communities. Although disasters will continue to occur, actions that move the nation from reactive approaches to disasters to a proactive stance where communities actively engage in enhancing resilience will reduce many of the broad societal and economic burdens that disasters can cause.

The full report is available online.

Become a Member
Become a Sponsor
Become a Volunteer

Sign Up for E-News

Get news and notifications from Resilient Virginia.

The Resilience Calendar

  • Purchasing Under FEMA Awards Training: Introduction
    Date: October 9, 2025
    Location: Virtual

    This training provides an overview of the federal procurement under grants rules for recipients and subrecipients when purchasing under a FEMA grant. This training is appropriate for FEMA award recipients and subrecipients, including: state,…

  • RVCA Water Infrastructure Working Group Meeting
    Date: October 9, 2025
    Location: Virtual

    Resilient Virginia Collaborative Alliance Water Infrastructure Working Group monthly meeting.  Anyone is welcome to join the conversation!

    RVCA Water Infrastructure Working Group
    Thursday, October 9 · 12:00 – 1:00pm
    Time zone: America/New_York<…

  • Appalachian Sustainable Development Barn To Run 4 Miler
    Date: October 12, 2025
    Location: Abingdon, VA, USA

    Join Appalachian Sustainable Development as they celebrate 30 years of growing a stronger Appalachia through Agriculture.  This family friendly event will be held at The Meadows in Abingdon, Va.  Wear your best fruit or veggie…

  • 2025 Renewable Thermal Collaborative
    Date: October 15, 2025
    Location: Washington, DC

    The RTC Summit is the only place where large industrial, institutional, and commercial energy users come together in person to accelerate renewable thermal solutions, connect with peers and renewable thermal providers, and overcome deployment…

Latest News & Resources

Fall 2025 with Resilient Virginia: Engaging Leaders, Empowering Action

This fall, Resilient Virginia is rolling out a lineup of virtual and in-person events aimed at bringing people together and sharing real-world tools for building stronger, more resilient communities across the state. From webinars and workshops to networking meetups, there’s something for everyone—whether you’re focused on agriculture, energy, infrastructure, the economy, or community development, or just getting started on your resilience journey.

Read More »

Upcoming Resilience Talks

Couldn’t attend every session at the recent Resilient Virginia Conference — or weren’t able to attend at all? You’re not alone—and we’ve got you covered.

Resilient Virginia is planning a series of post-conference sessions that will revisit the most in-demand topics from the conference—and the first three are happening soon!

Read More »

Where Resilience Meets Reality: Highlights from the 2025 Resilient Virginia Conference

Over 200 leaders, experts, and community advocates gathered at James Madison University this July for the 2025 Resilient Virginia Conference, themed “Moving Virginia Forward.” The two-day event offered a powerful mix of strategic insights, grassroots innovation, and hands-on learning—from climate-smart infrastructure and equity-driven planning to immersive experiences like the Science on a Sphere and FIRST Chesapeake’s “Robot Petting Zoo.”

Read More »