A statistical study of weather-related disasters. Past, present and future

Disasters such as floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts may have serious implications for human health and the economic development of countries. One of the main findings of this report is that disaster burdens are dominated by economic and demographic developments, rather than climate change. Furthermore, disaster burden appears to be spread unequally over rich and poor countries. In Chapter 2 the background of the three regions used throughout this report is described: OECD, BRIICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa and remaining countries. Furthermore, an overview of the disaster databases is given, along with definitions of disaster terminology. The statistical treatment of trends in disaster data is shortly exemplified. Chapter 3 gives on overview of the results for disaster burden and trends therein on a global scale. Results are split-up as for different disaster types. In Chapters 4 and 5 the same analysis is performed, but now split-up for three regions. In Chapter 4, disaster burdens are quantified, while analyses of trends in disaster burdens are given in Chapter 5. Here, the analyses are confined to weather-related disaster events only. In Chapter 6 the trend patterns found in Chapter 5, are explained as far as possible. Here, changes in wealth, changes in population, the role of climate change and changes due to adaptation are treated in separate sections. Chapter 7 shortly deals with communicational aspects of disasters: the attribution of individual disasters to climate change and results in the literature which are contradictory to results presented here. Chapters 3 through 7 deal with historical data on disaster burden. In the subsequent Chapters 8 and 9 the future of disaster burden will be dealt with. Chapter 8 gives a short overview of the future of disasters as presented in the literature. In Chapter 9 a PBL case study for flooding on a global scale is given, with predictions for people at risk and economic losses at risk up to the year 2050. Also a summary is given for cities most vulnerable to floods. The report ends with a summary, conclusions and a suggestion for future research items (Chapter 10)