Effective disaster risk management (DRM) requires an understanding of the social capacity of potentially affected communities, the environments in which they live and work, and the economic activities that these environments support. The resilience of communities and environments depends on their histories, including patterns of settlement, culture, politics, environmental degradation and stressors. Yet, these historical aspects are frequently overlooked in DRM, which can lead to inappropriate or short-lived solutions. To build resilience effectively, we need to understand communities and ecosystems as products of the past, and use this understanding to develop appropriate short- and long-term responses to disasters and build more resilient futures.