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Developing Sustainable Participation in Learning for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Resilience

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 757

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Institute of Education, University College London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK
Interests: community-based and participatory DRR/CCA; DRR learning; DRR education; community learning; public pedagogy
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Special Issue Information

Dear Early Career Researchers,

Participatory approaches have become mainstream in projects for developing disaster and climate resilience in communities. While many positive outcomes of such projects have been identified around the world, certain common challenges have also been reported. One of them is the challenge of sustaining communities’ participation in disaster risk reduction. For example, with funded projects, once the funding terminates, participants’ efforts tend to discontinue. In community-led initiatives, as participants’ memory of the disaster experience fades out, their interest in DRR tends to be lost as well. As a pathway for sustainable community engagement in DRR, ‘starting early’ has increasingly been promoted.

With this background, this Special Issue aims to explore the innovative efforts to develop disaster and climate resilience targeting early years (birth to 5 years old) and school years (6 to 15 years old). The other aim of this Special Issue is to support early career researchers. Innovative literature reviews and work-in-progress research on the themes of sustainable DRR learning are welcome. One requirement from the journal is that if you are not a Ph.D. holder, an expert in the field has to be co-listed as a corresponding author.

‘Education’ encompasses wide forms of learning and teaching beyond one that is based on a school curriculum. Therefore, research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Sustainable approaches to education for disaster and climate resilience for early years;
  • Sustainable approaches to education for disaster and climate resilience for school years;
  • Community-nursery collaboration for DRR purposes;
  • Community-school collaboration for DRR purposes;
  • University-nursery collaboration for DRR purposes;
  • University-school collaboration for DRR purposes;
  • DRR education and early years teacher education;
  • DRR education and school years teacher education.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Kaori Kitagawa
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • early years
  • school years
  • disaster and climate resilience
  • DRR education
  • community learning
  • participation
  • collaboration

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2911 KiB  
Article
Supporting Sustainable Development Through Early-Life DRR Learning Opportunities: UK School Insights
by Maciej Pawlik and Kaori Kitagawa
Sustainability 2025, 17(13), 5671; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17135671 - 20 Jun 2025
Viewed by 370
Abstract
The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme environmental phenomena mandate further actions to protect the most vulnerable groups, especially children. Traditionally, children have been excluded from conversations about disasters; however, this exclusion is reductive and perpetuates false ideas about children’s capacity to engage [...] Read more.
The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme environmental phenomena mandate further actions to protect the most vulnerable groups, especially children. Traditionally, children have been excluded from conversations about disasters; however, this exclusion is reductive and perpetuates false ideas about children’s capacity to engage with safety information and materially manifest sustainable practices in their life. Such a reality is also impractical because early exposure through learning opportunities can yield engagement in sustainable development in adulthood. This research sought to improve understanding about children’s capacity to engage in DRR information. This study reviewed posters created by 7-year-old children at a primary school in the UK. These were produced as part of prior climate change workshops and included an illustration of a flood safety kit with items children would choose to have with them if there was an emergency (e.g., flooding event). Items included were counted and tallied to identify trends. The results demonstrated the capacity of children in this age group to select practically useful items for their safety in flooding emergencies. Based on findings, this study advocates for greater inclusion of children within disaster preparedness activities and the production of more tailored DRR learning opportunities to engage children within their school environment. Full article
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