IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Changes in Impacts of Climate Extremes: Human Systems and EcosystemsChapter 4disaster, region, country, and the exposure and vulnerability of differentcommunities and sectors.Percentage of direct economic losses by regions: The concentration ofinformation on disaster risk generally is skewed toward developedcountries and the Northern Hemisphere (World Bank and UN, 2010).Some global databases, however, do allow a regional breakdown ofdisaster impacts. The unequal distribution of the human impact of naturaldisasters is reflected in the number of disasters and losses across regions(Figure 4-7). In the period 2000 to 2008, Asia experienced the highestnumber of weather- and climate-related disasters. The Americas sufferedthe most economic loss, accounting for the highest proportion (54.6%)of total loss, followed by Asia (27.5%) and Europe (15.9%). Africaaccounted for only 0.6% of global economic losses, but economic damagesfrom natural disasters are underreported in these data compared toother regions (Vos et al., 2010). Although reporting biases exist, they arejudged to provide robust evidence of the regional distribution of thenumber of disasters and of direct economic losses for this recent period2000 to 2008, and there is high agreement regarding this distributionamong different databases collected by independent organizations(Guha-Sapir et al., 2011; Munich Re, 2011; Swiss Re, 2011).Damage losses in percentage of GDP by regions: The relative economicburden in terms of direct loss expressed as a percentage of GDP has beensubstantially higher for developing states. Middle-income countrieswith rapidly expanding asset bases have borne the largest burden,where during the period from 2001 to 2006 losses amounted to about1% of GDP, while this ratio has been about 0.3% of GDP for low-incomecountries and less than 0.1% of GDP for high-income countries, basedon limited evidence (Cummins and Mahul, 2009). In small exposedcountries, particularly small island developing states, these wealth lossesexpressed as a percentage of GDP and averaged over both disaster andnon-disaster years can be considerably higher, exceeding 1% in manycases and 8% in the most extreme cases over the period from 1970 to2010 (World Bank and UN, 2010), and individual events may consumemore than the annual GDP (McKenzie et al., 2005). This indicates a farhigher vulnerability of the economic infrastructure in developingcountries (Cavallo and Noy 2009; UNISDR, 2009).Increasing weather- and climate-related disasters: The number of reportedweather- and climate-related disasters and their direct financial costshave increased over the past decades. Figure 4-8 illustrates an increasingtrend (coupled with large interannual variability) in losses based ondata for large weather-and climate-related disasters over the period1980 to 2010, for which data have been gathered consistently andsystematically (see Neumayer and Barthel, 2011).This increase in affected population and direct economic losses is alsocoupled with the increasing numbers of reported weather- and climaterelateddisasters (UNISDR, 2009; Munich Re, 2011; Swiss Re 2011).13687583260554845.281713.171322.82Number of disastersHydrologicalMeteorologicalClimatologicalDamagesAMERICASHeight of columns represents the number of disasters or damages in billion dollars.EUROPE181390.5AFRICAASIA1381 1.19OCEANIAFigure 4-7 | Weather- and climate-related disaster occurrence and regional average impacts from 2000 to 2008. The number of climatological (e.g., extreme temperature, drought,wildfire), meteorological (e.g., storm), and hydrological (e.g., flood, landslides) disasters is given for each region, along with damages (2009 US$ billion). Data from Vos et al., 2010.270