What We Can Learn from Ancient Societies About Disaster-Proofing Our Cities

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires are natural phenomena that can become disastrous, but just how severely they affect us depends on how we prepare for and respond to them.

We can’t stop earthquakes, for instance, but we can build more flexible structures.

This was known even in the ancient world.

Inca masons used mortar-free, precisely fitted, irregularly shaped stones that could move and settle back into position. Traditional Japanese wooden constructions featured a massive central wooden post that functioned similarly to the features that help today’s skyscrapers withstand shaking ground movement. And a new understanding of ancient Roman concrete suggests that it became stronger over time and was, to a degree, self-healing, with inclusions that reacted with water to stop cracks from propagating.

Innovative planning and design also helped ancient people weather other disasters, like droughts and floods. Our ancestors knew how to use nature to their benefit, keep landscapes healthy, and rely on strong community ties.

Relearning those old lessons could now help us better prepare for the disasters of the future—which are poised to cause more damage than ever.  

They Didn’t Fight Nature—and Often Used It to Their Benefit

Around the world, flooding has become more dangerous as climate change intensifies rainfall and more people live along coastlines that are vulnerable to floods and hurricanes.

But some ancient societies used overflowing rivers to their benefit. Rather than confining and directing water into a narrow space, which can create powerful torrents, flood waters were given room to spread out over large areas.

Ancient Egyptians used annual floods along the Nile River to irrigate crop fields. As floodwaters receded from the riverbanks, river sediment was left behind and made soils more fertile for agriculture. The Egyptians also engaged in a practice called basin irrigation—earthen banks contained and controlled floodwaters in a way that allowed agricultural fields to be irrigated and then drained.

In other cases, ancient people realized where flood danger existed, and positioned themselves to avoid it.

Ancient residents of the Mosquito Coast of eastern Honduras built their villages outside of the floodplains of the main rivers. Instead, they chose to position settlements along smaller tributaries, safe from the worst of the flooding.

The ancient philosophy of letting the water spread out safely, rather than fighting it into a narrow channel, can help us adapt to today’s floods.

Modern engineers have been using concrete basins to contain floodwaters that gradually flow into a stream or stormwater drain. Recently, city planners have been retrofitting these basins into wetland ecosystems that can better absorb water, allowing it to soak into the soil. They’re finding that reviving floodplains alongside rivers helps accommodate floods without causing nearby disaster.  

They Kept Landscapes Healthy Before Disaster Could Strike

Ancient people were intentional about how their land was used.

Indigenous Australian peoples, for instance, used small, controlled fires to prevent larger ones. This preventative measure helped control the amount of fire-fueling brush that accumulated on the forest floor.

Other ancient communities, like the Maya, purposely arranged their lands in formations known as mosaic landscapes—rotating or mixing fields used for crops, orchards, fallow land, and woodlands. As opposed to clear cutting landscapes to create a permanent field for growing a single type of crop, something largely done today, mixing and rotating vegetation can keep soil healthy and support local biodiversity.

To protect their crops from disasters like drought, the Inca terraced their fields, allowing soil to absorb more rainfall than it would in a flat field. And ancient communities in the altiplano of Bolivia around Lake Titicaca constructed canals between raised fields that irrigated crops and protected them from frost.

Those ancient techniques for sustainably managing a landscape are now being studied by landscape managers looking for old solutions to new problems. In places particularly hard hit by worsening wildfires, like Australia, landscaper managers are incorporating Indigenous wildfire management techniques into how they prevent larger wildfires from starting.

Lessons from indigenous groups are also being incorporated in modern agriculture. Cover crops can help conserve water and regenerative agriculture practices keep soil healthy.

Ancient People Knew Recovery Takes a Village

Today’s popular survivalist culture focuses on individual stockpiling and heroic solo acts.

But the historical record shows that community cooperation, not self-reliance, makes those experiencing a disaster likelier to survive and recover. Slow and systematic does not make a good movie, but it is how people have always recovered from disaster.

After Europeans arrived in North America, bringing conquest and disease, remnants of Florida’s many diverse tribes formed villages and by the 18^th century became known as the Seminole people. After an earthquake struck the ancient Greek island of Rhodes in 227 B.C., the city recovered thanks to aid from nearby Mediterranean settlements. By studying how ancient communities recovered from disasters like droughts and floods, research has shown that communities with cohesive and inclusive social structures were more likely to survive.

This kind of communal response to disaster is essential for places struck by today’s disasters.

After Hurricane Helene caused deadly flooding throughout the Appalachian region in 2024, community members, even distant neighbors, shared food and water, and helped each other clear flood debris.

Building a bunker with a stock of food and other supplies can sustain a small group for a while, but communities need farms, schools, and stores; they need infrastructure and supply chains. Even the best prepared individual is going to need a functioning society, eventually.

We can replicate these ancient strategies for managing floods or fires, but we would be better off emulating the most important quality of successful societies in the past—flexibility.

Groups that could adapt, change, pivot, and find other options made it through crises. Relying on a single crop, trading partner, or valuable resource is a recipe for disaster. Rigid ways of being, like inflexible buildings, do not fare well when the ground shifts.