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IMPACT ON POPULATION
source: www.who.int/globalchange/
climate/en/ccSCREEN.pdf
EM-DAT _ The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database
UCL - Brussels, Belgium
www.em-dat.net
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Globally, natural disaster impacts have been increasing… - data from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, Belgium, as well as the Red Cross and the reinsurance industry, show that the number of disasters affecting at least 100 people or resulting in a call for international assistance has increased from an average of about 100 per year in the late '60s to between 500 and 800 per year by the early 21st century;
- the costs of major disasters, according to the German insurance company Munich Re, rose more than tenfold in the second half of the 20th century, from an average of about $4 billion per year in the 1950s to more than $40 billion in the 1990s, in inflation-adjusted dollars;
- the economic losses from disasters are increasingly concentrated in the affluent world. But, as a percentage of GNP, the economic effects of natural disasters on poor countries can be hundreds of times greater;
- all this reflects global trends in population vulnerability more than an increased frequency of extreme climatic events;
- developing countries are poorly equipped to deal with weather extremes, even as the population concentration increases in high-risk areas like coastal zones and cities. Hence, the number of people killed, injured or made homeless by natural disasters has been increasing rapidly;
- emergency preparation and response capabilities are often inadequate, and hazard insurance is usually unavailable, further slowing recovery. Thus, while the world's poorest 35 countries make up only about 10% of the world's population, they suffered more than half of the disaster-related deaths between 1992 and 2001.
Average number of people killed per million inhabitants in major world aggregates (1994–2003)| Development Group | hydro-meteo | geological | biological | | OECD | 4.465 | 2.316 | 0.023 | | CEE+CIS | 1.085 | 0.499 | 0.156 | | Developing countries | 3.719 | 1.567 | 0.534 | | Least developed countries | 3.399 | 1.386 | 7.809 |
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