Table 1: What is a “disaster”?
The more recent definition by the Swiss Reinsurance Company needed either or both of the consequences to be satisfied. It is interesting to note that the definition of “disaster losses” has changed to be a reduction in the number of deaths and an increase in the cost. Perhaps this reflects society’s ability to reduce the number of deaths with advancements in technology and medicine.
The statement that poorer countries are more at risk than richer countries is not entirely correct and therefore I cannot fully agree with it. The question does bring up the issue of a difference in the risk experienced by richer (or EMDC’s) and poorer (ELDC’s) countries. Figures show that the impacts of natural hazards are not equal at the global scale. 90% of hazard-related deaths are in ELDC’s. While 75% of the economic losses incurred from natural hazards happen in EMDC’s. With time, there has been a decrease in the number of deaths per hazard in EMDC’s, however this figure has continued to rise in ELDC’s. See Table 2.
Table 2: Average deaths per hazards in EMDC’s and ELDC’s.
Not only did the number of hazardous events increase, but so did the scale of the impacts. In the mid 1960’s fewer than fifty million people were affected each year, however in the 1990’s this figure had risen to 250 million people. The 1990s was the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. There had been efforts to reduce the impacts, however the death toll and damage to property figures continued to rise. Although Global warming and climatic change is expected to have increased the amount of atmospheric and flood hazards there have been no figures to prove this. The definition of a hazard is a “geophysical event which has the potential to cause loss of life or property”. Now due to population growth, urbanisation, land pressure, increased vulnerability, economic growth producing more property there is bound to be higher death tolls and economic losses. It should be noted that urbanisation in ELDC’s took place post 1945, and the numbers of people moving from rural to urban areas is still rising today. The high rate of population growth in ELDC’s cities is due to high natural increase due to age and sex selective migration, rural traditions and better medical facilities in urban areas. There are now twenty megacities which have populations above ten million! Population growth has altered the natural environment too. For example, many spontaneous settlements have been built on steep slopes in Rio de Janeiro. Trees have been removed so that housing can be built, these removes sheer strength and by adding housing increases sheer stress which might trigger a landslide, or make it more likely to occur if there is high rainfall which reduces internal cohesion. The deforestation of the Amazon has caused increased flooding, landslides and soil erosion as important stores of water have been removed from the ecosystem.
China has now recognised that the forests are ten times more valuable for flood control and water supply than they are for timber, and thus logging was halted in the Yangtze River watershed. The loss of 85% of the forests in the upper Yangtze worsened the 1998 flood which affected 223 million people.
Natural disasters have a significant detrimental impact on the developing and developed world alike. On an annual basis over the past decade, ELDC’s spend $35 billion on damages from natural disasters. On a per capita GDP basis this is relatively twenty times the cost in the developed world. A long term implication of this is for example, less money available to spend on improving the infrastructure to make sure it is safe. Generally the poorest developing countries lack internal resources to be able to reconstruct areas after they have been hit by natural hazards such as floods and tropical storms. In the USA, half of the costs of natural hazards are absorbed by insurance. In ELDC’s only 2% of all costs in reconstruction are absorbed by insurance. Hurricane Mitch in 1998, caused damage in Central America which was $8.5 billion higher than the combined GDP of Honduras and Nicaragua, the two nations hardest hit.
70% of all floods occur in Asia. Every year $12 billion of infrastructure are lost to floods in Asia. A large part of this infrastructure is “Energy Infrastructure” as this tends to constitute about 25% of developing countries infrastructure. The fact that this is constantly being affected is important, as it is reasonably priced energy which is a catalyst of economic growth and alleviating poverty directly and indirectly. However if it is continually being hit by flooding, then not only economic growth is curbed but so is alleviating poverty. Both economic growth and improving poverty would reduce the number of deaths incurred from natural hazards in ELDC’s. It is almost like a vicious cycle. It should be noted that a single major disaster can retard economic progress in a developing country by as much as five years!
The distribution of hazards is important to consider. Hurricanes only occur along the tropics due to the requirements of air circulation and warm sea temperatures. There are more ELDC’s in this zone, so therefore they are more at risk from hurricanes than EMDC’s because they are more likely to be hit by one.
EMDC’s do have severe losses from natural disasters too. In the USA, more than $100 billion was lost in natural disasters in seven years; this was due to earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding. However only a few hundred lives were lost and this is due to their ability to modify the vulnerability of the population by accurate predictions. For example, hazard prone areas in the USA are generally known. The USA also has the money to spend on creating devices to predict hazards and mitigate land-use plans and hazard maps to protect their country. There is computer modelling of watersheds so there can be more accurate flood alerts. Also many volcanic eruptions are predicted by gas emission and temperature checks in the crater. An increase in sulphur dioxide gas emission and an increase in temperature show the volcano is near eruption. Although earthquake prediction is still not as accurate, there are automated early warning systems which can provide 60 seconds notice allowing major gas lines, power plants, computers and so on to be switched off. ELDC’s cannot afford to spend large amounts of money on equipment to predict these hazards. Therefore the equipment they do use may be inaccurate and therefore when they give out false alarms they begin to loose people confidence and therefore citizens may not react when a real prediction is made.
Settlement and land use is important to consider. In EMDC’s money is able to be spent on aseismic buildings to reduce the loss of life and property during and earthquake, however ELDC’s do not have the money to introduce these schemes. Housing plays a large role in the death toll in earthquakes, as was clear in Kobe January 17th. The majority of deaths were in the Nagata Ward where the housing was mainly timber. Earthquakes in Turkey 1999 and Gujarat 2001 have also tragically highlighted this. Due to rapid urbanisation – one thousand people arrive in Istanbul every day, houses are built quickly. 65% of buildings in Turkey are built without a permit. 80% of Indian’s build their own homes. These flimsy constructions are therefore easier to fall during an earthquake and therefore cause death through crushing victims within these homes. Land use plans which map hazardous zones are not abided by therefore and people fall victims of these natural hazards. In EMDC’s permits are required for building, and because of higher standards of living people pay large amounts of money for safe and extravagant housing.
Indirect risks are likely to be higher in ELDC’s too. As it is likely to take longer to recover to normality (see Park 1991). Therefore there could be waterborne diseases such as typhoid and dysentery as it may take longer for clean water to be available. Although this is not due to a natural hazard, but a conflict, many people in Iraq are suffering from waterborne diseases as it is taking a long time to return to normality.
Finally, the risk of natural disasters for all countries is increasing. This is due to climatic change. More hurricanes and floods are predicted to result from a global climate change. Since flooding and hurricanes tend to happen in the same regions, the exposure to countries already at risk will increase. Flooding occurs on 1% of the earth’s landmass. Unfortunately, many of the fastest growing urban areas in the world are by the coast. These are in ELDC’s and are located here due to colonial original development in these regions. When the countries were colonised, coastal areas were developed the most so that the colonial countries could maximise the ability to export goods. These cities tend to be the primate cities of the country for example Lagos, Nigeria. As discussed earlier, there are proportionately more ELDC’s along the tropics which is the area vulnerable to hurricanes. These coastal zone cities will be subject to an increased risk as a result of global climatic change.
Both rich and poor countries suffer from natural hazards. I would agree that poorer countries are more vulnerable than rich countries as they do not have as much money to spend on protecting themselves. Also they tend to have much higher population densities so more people are going to be affected. However, richer countries are affected economically. Poorer countries are therefore are more at risk at loosing lives due to natural hazards than richer countries.
