Abstract
In 2022, the world faced 387 natural disasters, resulting in 30,704 deaths and EUR 52.3 billion in economic damages. These figures highlight the urgent need for effective disaster risk management amid increasing climate-related extremes. Traditionally, top-down approaches have dominated, but there is growing recognition of the importance of integrating bottom-up community-based approaches (CBAs) for more inclusive and sustainable disaster risk reduction (DRR). Despite extensive research on CBAs, uncertainties remain regarding their essential elements and the most effective tools for community integration into DRR policies. This study investigates these complexities through a literature review of 74 papers from Web of Science and deductive content analysis. Our findings reveal various methods for community involvement in DRR strategies. No single tool is universally superior; rather, tool effectiveness varies by context. We propose a conceptual framework with four dimensions—Drivers, Local Context, Community Agency, and Participatory Processes—to guide practical CBAs and support effective community engagement in disaster risk management.