As engines of growth, cities need to be made more resilient to natural hazards

TODAY more people live in cities than in the countryside worldwide. We look to our cities for economic opportunities and for all things bigger, better and newer. To quote United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, "Urbanisation is a driving force as well as a source of development. It has the power to change and improve the lives." Yet, cities will only remain engines of growth if they are made far more resilient to the growing threat of natural hazards.

Cities have been at the sharp end of the world's costliest or deadliest disasters in recent years. Among them: the tsunami that tore into Fukushima in 2011, the great floods that submerge…