Natural hazards and disasters

Scientific research and practitioner experience have revealed that disasters, development and poverty are intimately linked. Destruction of assets and livelihoods in disasters set back hard-won development gains and worsen poverty, often for extended periods of years. Progress in ending extreme poverty may be reversed in the face of a disaster event and poverty re-entrenched. Disaster impacts are growing, amplified by rapid growth and unsustainable development practices that increase the exposure and vulnerabilities of communities and capital assets. Governments increasingly recognize that the reduction of disaster risks is a foundation for successful sustainable development, and that disaster risk is a crosscutting issue, requiring action across multiple sectors.

2004

Natural disasters exert an enormous toll on development. In doing so, they pose a significant threat to prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in particular, the overarching target of halving extreme poverty by 2015. Annual economic losses associated with such disasters averaged US$ 75.5 billion in the 1960s, US$ 138.4 billion in the 1970s, US$ 213.9 billion in the 1980s and US$ 659.9 billion in the 1990s. The majority of these losses are concentrated in the developed world and fail to adequately capture the impact of the disaster on the poor who often bear the greatest cost in terms of lives and livelihoods, and rebuilding their shattered communities and infrastructure. Today, 85 percent of the people exposed to earthquakes, tropical cyclones, floods and droughts live in countries having either medium or low human development. This Report is premised on the belief that in many countries the process of development itself has a huge impact-both positive and negative-on disaster risk. It shows how countries that face similar patterns of natural hazards-from floods to droughtsoften experience widely differing impacts when disasters occur. The impact depends in large part on the kind of development choices they have made previously. As countries become more prosperous, for example, they are often better able to afford the investments needed to build houses more likely to withstand earthquakes. At the same time, the rush for growth can trigger haphazard urban development that increases risks of large-scale fatalities during such a disaster. The same is true in many other areas. While humanitarian action to mitigate the impact of disasters will always be vitally important, the global community is facing a critical challenge: How to better anticipate-and then manage and reduce-disaster risk by integrating the potential threat into its planning and policies. To help frame such efforts, this Report introduces a pioneering Disaster Risk Index (DRI) that measures the relative vulnerability of countries to three key natural hazardsearthquake, tropical cyclone and flood-identifies development factors that contribute to risk, and shows in quantitative terms, just how the effects of disasters can be either reduced or exacerbated by policy choices. Our hope is that the index will both help generate renewed interest in this critical development issue and help bring together stakeholders around more careful and coherent planning to mitigate the impact of future disasters. Mark Malloch Brown Administrator United Nations Development Programme FOREWORD development and disaster risk, we wanted to highlight these development choices. Disaster risk is not inevitable, but on the contrary can be managed and reduced through appropriate development actions. This is the message we want to convey in this Report to our programme countries, our donors, our partners in the United Nations system, regional and international organisations, civil society and the private sector. A great deal of support was provided in preparation of this publication, known as the World Vulnerability Report when the process began in 2000, and we acknowledge many generous contributions. Contributors The technical production of the Report was made by the following team: Mark Pelling (editor), Andrew Maskrey, Pablo Ruiz and Lisa Hall. Yasemin Aysan was responsible for the overall coordination of the Report in its first stages, with critical support from Ben Wisner and Haris Sanahuja. The preparation of the Disaster Risk Index (DRI) was originally conceived during the meeting of a Group of Experts in 2000 and commissioned to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Resource Information Database (GRID) in Geneva. Main scientific collaborators include Hy Dao, Pascal Peduzzi, Christian Herold and Frédéric Mouton. Maxx Dilley and Haris Sanahuja provided key guidance in concepts and definitions. We would like also to thank those whose work has directly or indirectly contributed to the success of this research, such as Brad Lyon and his colleagues from the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate Prediction at Columbia University for his methodology on determining physical drought. Regina Below and Debarati Guha-Sapir for EM-DAT databases and Bruce Harper, Greg Holland and Nanette Lombarda for input on tropical cyclones. This work also benefited from the contributions of

This paper is written on the basis of secondary information like government reports, books, articles, electronic journals and so on. At first local issues like Bangladesh will be discussed. Then it will be shortly interconnected with the global phenomenon in terms of climate change and, particularly, natural disasters. A disaster, or natural disaster, is the effect of a hazard on society, usually as an event that occurs over a limited time span in a defined geographic area. According to other scholars, Natural disasters are defined as events that are triggered by natural phenomena or natural hazards. In Bangladesh, hurricanes or cyclones and almost regular floods are comparatively common. Bangladesh is low income country and the standard of living of its population is very poor, whereas almost every year natural disasters cripple its economy. Thus socio-economic condition is often hampered. Beck defines 'risk' as the anticipation of the catastrophe. Beck continues, Risks are always future events that may occur, that threaten us. But in the case of Bangladesh, the risks of natural disasters are always in practice, i.e. loss of lives, more poverty, unemployment, disempowerment of women, illiteracy and so on. This affects trade and investments as well as consumption. Beck interestingly terms the globalization of environmental problems as social problems. We completely agree with Beck. About empowerment, the definition of the World Bank is mentionable, Empowerment is the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives. In terms of empowerment,we argue that any natural disasters usually make women more vulnerable, as they become the major victims due to natural disasters.

2012

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This publication has been issued without formal editing. Mention of firm names and commercial products does not imply the endorsement of the United Nations. Reproduction and dissemination of material in this publication for educational or other noncommercial purposes are authorized without prior written permission from the copyright holder, provided that the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of material in this publication for sale or other commercial purposes, including publicity and advertising, is prohibited without the written permission of the copyright holder. Applications for such permission, with a statement of purpose and extent of the reproduction, should be addressed to the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Regional Office, AP, Thailand. vii For many in Asia and the Pacific, 2011 will be remembered as a year of large-scale disasters with devastating impacts on economies, communities and above all the lives of people across our region. The Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and the ensuing nuclear disaster, as well as the Southeast Asian floods, which so severely affected Thailand, were major contributors to the staggering $294 billion in regional economic losses-representing 80 per cent of global losses due to disasters in 2011. Disasters can affect developed and developing countries in equal measure. Yet risk accumulation, spurred by rapid economic growth, remains only partially understood. We are still working to identify the ways in which different components of risk-hazards, vulnerability and exposure-interact to increase total risk, and trigger damage. One of the most positive developments, however, is that, despite greater frequency of these events and increased damage to property and livelihoods, the death toll from such disasters as typhoons, floods and landslides in some subregions is decreasing. This is a significant accomplishment, and proves that better disaster risk management-investing in early warning systems, preparedness and social safety nets-saves lives. Economic development creates resilience when invested to reduce the vulnerability of people and communities. Collective actions can mitigate disasters, and protect our populations, but we are in a race against time. Exposure to disaster risk is growing faster than our ability to build resilience. Economic losses are rising, and communities are continually threatened. Rapid regional economic growth is also partially responsible for the rapid growth of disaster exposure. In Asia and the Pacific, over the past four decades, the average number of people exposed to annual flooding has increased from 29.5 to 63.8 million, whilst populations in cyclone-prone areas have grown from 71.8 million to 120.7 million. The region also represents more than 85 per cent of global economic exposure to tropical cyclones-pointing to a pattern of economic growth in typhoon prone coastlines and flood plains. When disasters hit, it is private citizens and communities who pay the highest price. In 2009, when Typhoon Ketsana caused damage of $58 million in the Lao People's Democratic Republic, 50 per cent of the losses were borne by small farmers. In the Philippines, the same typhoon caused damage of $4.3 billion-90 per cent of which were borne by poor urban households. Seventy per cent of the $9.7 billion in flood damage in Pakistan in 2010 was borne by poor households and small farmers. These figures highlight the ways in which socioeconomic vulnerabilities are interlinked. As economies falter, social spending is threatened. It is the poor, and particularly women, children, the elderly and the disabled, who Preface viii are the most vulnerable-first through direct losses and again through subsequent fiscal adjustments. It is therefore crucial that every effort be made to protect development gains which benefit the poorest and most vulnerable. While they are the hardest hit in a disaster, vulnerability can increase for everyone in a community. Our shared challenge is to control both the growing rate of exposure and rising vulnerability. Exposure to hazards has multiplied as urban centers grow and people and economic activities expand into increasingly exposed and hazard-prone land. It is also a concern that smaller economies, those that have less diversified economic structures, and countries with high fiscal deficits, show greater strains of vulnerability even when faced with relatively small-scale disasters. Land use and urban planning, ecosystem management and disaster recovery-the very tools devised to deal with exposure to risks-are not yielding the desired results. Globalization of supply chains means that any disruption to a single node of production may lead to a breakdown of the entire production chain, as happened in 2011 Thai floods and the Great East Japan Earthquake. And, in the developed countries of the Asia-Pacific region, where prosperity should be used to address the many downsides of economic growth, disaster losses are growing most rapidly. There are, however, some outstanding efforts being made to reverse these trends. Bangladesh's investment of more than $10 billion in the past 35 years in disaster risk reduction has resulted in lower disaster losses. It is one of only a handful of countries in the region to have done so. China is another, with its 2011-2015 Comprehensive Disaster Prevention and Reduction Plan which aim to reduce disaster losses annually to less than 1.5 per cent GDP through investment measures across government sectors. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand have shown that well-targeted social protection measures are not only affordable but that they also reduce vulnerability to a great extent. Innovative technologies in information, communication and space-based applications have been put to good use by several countries to fill critical gaps in the information supply chain. This report demonstrates that countries increasingly embrace the view that minimizing disaster risk is essential for achieving sustainable development. Many have started to take action-building the resilience of people and communities. One of the key Rio+20 outcomes is stronger political commitment and recognition that disaster risk reduction and building resilience need to be addressed with a "renewed sense of urgency in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication". The disasters of the past two years have defined the consequences of failing to fully apply the combined tenets of disaster risk reduction and sustainable development.-it is now time to act. We are pleased, therefore, to present the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2012: Reducing Vulnerability and Exposure to Disasters, to the ministers, policymakers and other participants at the Fifth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. We believe these findings will prove useful in the pursuit of sustainable development and in the implementation of future disaster risk reduction agendas. Our organizations, and those other dedicated partners with whom we work, look forward to joining you in making a safer and continuously prosperous Asia-Pacific region.