Research BriefingPublished: 06 November 2026Nature Sustainability (2026) Cite this articleView saved researchUsing microsimulations, we quantify disaster-related decreases in material well-being, capturing not only what is damaged, but also how damage affects the population. We calculate socio-economic resilience — a population’s capacity to maintain well-being despite asset damages — and find that global well-being losses exceed US$1 trillion annually, representing about double the monetary asset damages.This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institutionAccess options Access through your institutionAccess Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journalsGet Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription34.99 € / 30 days cancel any timeLearn moreSubscribe to this journalReceive 12 digital issues and online access to articles118.99 € per year only 9.92 € per issueLearn moreBuy this articlePurchase on SpringerLinkInstant access to the full article PDF.39,95 €Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkoutFig. 1: Global picture of socio-economic resilience.ReferencesSoden, R. et al. The importance of accounting for equity in disaster risk models. Commun. Earth Environ. 4, 386 (2023). This paper demonstrates that most risk assessments fail to account for the distributional dimensions of disasters.Article Google Scholar CDRI. Global Infrastructure Resilience: Capturing the Resilience Dividend (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, 2023). We use the modelled asset damages from floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and tropical cyclones underlying this report to estimate the country-level risk to assets.Pelling, M. & Garschagen, M. Put equity first in climate adaptation. Nature 569, 327–329 (2019). A Comment that calls for a stronger focus on the poorest and most vulnerable when designing adaptation measures.Article CAS Google Scholar Hallegatte, S., Vogt-Schilb, A., Bangalore, M. & Rozenberg, J. Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters (World Bank, 2017). The World Bank report with the first application of the framework.Walsh, B. & Hallegatte, S. Measuring natural risks in the Philippines: socioeconomic resilience and wellbeing losses. Econ. Disasters Clim. Change 4, 249–293 (2020). This paper presents a country-level application of the framework using full household survey data.Article Google Scholar Download referencesAdditional informationPublisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.This is a summary of: Middelanis, R. et al. Global socio-economic resilience to disasters. Nat. Sustain. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-026-01947-z (2026).Rights and permissionsReprints and permissionsAbout this article