mitigation
n.the act of making something bad or painful less severe. You use this word when talking about reducing the damage from a problem.
n.the action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something. Often used in legal, environmental, or technical contexts to describe preventative measures.
“The city is working on flood mitigation to protect homes.”
“Effective risk mitigation requires identifying potential problems before they escalate into full-scale crises.”
“The environmental impact report suggested several mitigation strategies, including the restoration of local wetlands to offset the damage caused by the new highway construction.”
Often followed by the preposition 'of' plus a noun phrase representing the negative impact being reduced.
“Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said 398 tons of aid, including food, tents, refugee shelters and donations from the public, have been transported to affected communities.”
“For 40 years, wealthy countries have focused heavily on cutting the carbon emissions that cause climate change, known as mitigation.”
Common in science writing
From Middle French mitigation, from Latin mitigatio.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.