Transforming disaster risk reduction in South Louisiana: Advancing scalable solutions for flood and wind resilience

South Louisiana is at the forefront of a national crisis of increasing flood and wind disasters, with the insurance industry, critical infrastructure and long-term community resilience under growing stress. To counteract these trends, the Louisiana Disaster Reduction Initiative (DRI) concept offers an integrated and proactive approach to disaster risk reduction (DRR) through scalable solutions based on user-centric soft technologies, including decision support systems, construction compliance platforms and learning tools. Based on co-production with local partners and guided by an innovation-to-commercialisation pathway, DRI is conceptualised to address systematic gaps, accelerate the adoption of mitigation practices and facilitate a sustainable regional economy. By connecting data-informed interventions with community-engaged practices, DRI presents a replicable model for disaster and emergency management practitioners to promote DRR and create adaptive capacity in vulnerable regions. This paper introduces the DRI framework as a practical guide for disaster and emergency management professionals aiming to base DRR efforts on data and locally contextualized practices. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.