At the local level, reducing environmental degradation and ecosystem decline requires acknowledgement of the links between unsustainable development and poverty. Communities are often driven to degrade their environment as a short-term coping mechanism; for instance, surviving a failed harvest by selling wood. Strategies for reducing poverty by investing in environment-sensitive development should therefore support efforts to reduce disaster risk and enhance resilience.

A number of approaches and tools in environmental management, including environmental impact assessments, now take explicit account of disaster risk, while increasing investments are now being made in ecosystem approaches to disaster risk management at all levels.

At the policy level, there are common elements in successful policies across the regions, which extend to managing climate change. Tools such as integrated water resources and coastal zone management; the removal of environmentally harmful subsidies, especially on fossil fuels and/or carbon taxes; renewable energy, marine protected areas, and cross-boundary biodiversity conservation, are all examples of policies used in more than one region, but customized to each context. Formal, robust, and well-established governance mechanisms and structures at all governance levels are a necessary foundation for successful implementation of environmental policies.

Innovative schemes including ‘green infrastructure’ projects that maximize ecosystem services, including the reduction of flood risks, have been implemented. For example, in Napa Valley, California, green infrastructure in the form of wetlands creation and protection as well as floodplain restoration is combined with a set of grey infrastructure investments such as conventional rock and concrete flood protection. Mangrove conservation and restoration is another area where considerable efforts have been invested, though the results are still mixed.