The Frequency and Impact of Natural Disasters

Global change: Put people at the centre of global risk management

“…From 1980 to 2012, annual economic losses from environmental disasters rose more than sevenfold, from about $20 billion to $150 billion a year 1 .…”

Rapid Mapping: geomatics role and research opportunities

“…Among all observed natural and anthropogenic adversities, waterrelated disasters are undoubtedly the most recurrent and pose major impediments to the achievement of human security and sustainable socio-economic development''. Guha-Sapir et al (2014), highlight that natural disasters reported for 2013 are decreasing (330) when compared to the average annual occurrence from 2003 to 2012 (388). But unfortunately the number of people killed by floods (9819) was the highest of the decade and the number of those killed by storms (8583), the second highest.…”

“…Most disaster victims in 2013 were sourced by cyclones Hayan, Phailin and Utor/Labuyo (all these emergencies recorded in the Far East), that together affected more than 37 millions of people. From these data, Guha-Sapir et al (2014) stress that climate change related disasters (floods and hurricanes/cyclones) are more devastating, both in terms of affected people and of economic losses. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP 2015) focuses the analysis in Asia and the Pacific regions in 2014, highlighting that ''2014 was an atypical year in terms of storms, transboundary floods and landslides, which collectively contributed to the region's total economic losses of US$59.6 billion''.…”

A Novel Methodological Approach to Estimate the Impact of Natural Hazard-Induced Disasters on Country/Region-Level Economic Growth

“…Two types of datasets were used in this research: (1) economic data of the countries/regions including variables such as gross domestic product (GDP), population, purchasing power parity (PPP), and openness to trade obtained from the Penn World Tables (PWT version 7.1) (Heston et al 2012); and (2) disaster data obtained from the EM-DAT database maintained by CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) (Guha-Sapir et al 2015). The EM-DAT database records the impact of a disaster based on human dimensions, that is, the number of people who died or were affected or became homeless due to a disaster and direct economic damage, but does not consider the physical attributes of the disaster, that is, the magnitude of a seismic event on the Richter scale or the amount of rain recorded that caused a flood, and so on.…”

“…A disaster event is recorded into the EM-DAT database system if it satisfies one of the following criteria: (1) 10 or more people are reported to have been killed; (2) 100 or more people are reported to have been affected, that is, either injured or have become homeless or affected in some other way; (3) there has been a call for international assistance; and (4) a state of emergency has been declared (Guha-Sapir et al 2015). The number of fatalities and total people affected are considered proxy variables to measure the impact of a disaster event in this research.…”