Issue No.
61 Cred Crunch December 2020
Human Cost of Disasters (2000-2019)
Over the last twenty years, 7,348 disaster events were systemic nature of disaster risk, i.e. the overlap of events and
recorded worldwide by EM-DAT, one of the foremost the interplay between risk drivers such as poverty, climate
international databases of such events. In total, as seen in change, air pollution, population growth in hazard-exposed
Figure 1, disasters claimed approximately 1.23 million areas, uncontrolled urbanization and the loss of bio-diversity,
lives, an average of 60,000 per annum, and affected a to- requires greater strengthening of disaster risk governance.
tal of over 4 billion people (many on more than one occa- Political commitment is essential if the SDGs are to be
sion). Additionally, disasters led to approximately US$ achieved and if progress is to be made on reducing the num-
2.97 trillion in economic losses worldwide. bers of people affected by disasters and reducing the eco-
nomic losses and damage to critical infrastructure that come
These numbers represent an increase of the number of rec- with them.
orded disaster events by comparison with the previous twen-
ty years. Between 1980 and 1999, EM-DAT recorded 4,212 The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - UNDRR’s
disasters linked to natural hazards worldwide, which claimed 2019 Global Assessment Report for Disaster Risk Reduction
approximately 1.19 million lives and affected over 3 billion highlights that failure to understand and manage systemic
people (Figure 1). Economic losses totaled US$ 1.63 trillion. risk is a challenge for reducing disaster losses as set out in
the global blueprint: the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk
While better recording and reporting may partly explain Reduction (2015-2030) adopted by UN member States.
some of the increase in events, it is also due to a rise in the
number of climate-related disasters. Between 2000 and 2019, Nothing has revealed more clearly the need for an all-of-
there were 510,837 deaths and 3.9 billion people affected by society focus on disaster risk reduction than the current
6,681 climate-related disasters. This compares with 3,656 COVID-19 pandemic which has laid bare many shortcom-
climate-related events which accounted for 995,330 deaths ings in disaster risk management, not least in governance
(47% due to drought/famine) and 3.2 billion affected in the failures in response to repeated warnings.
period 1980-1999. The number of people affected by disas-
ters, including injuries and disruption of livelihoods, espe-
cially in agriculture, and the associated economic damage are
growing in contrast to the decrease in mortality. This is evi-
dence that in a world where the global average temperature
in 2019 was 1.1˚C above the preindustrial period, the impacts
are being felt in the increased frequency of extreme weather
events including heatwaves, droughts, flooding, winter
storms, hurricanes and wildfires. While improvements have
been made in terms of early warnings, disaster preparedness
and response, which have led to a reduction in loss of life in
single-hazard scenarios, it is also clear that the increasingly
All figures presented in the CRED CRUNCH from "EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database”
Analysis & Writing by the EM-DAT Team in collaboration with UNDRR
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)
Key points and recommendations:
• A temperature increase of 3°C of the global climate is estimated to increase the frequency of poten-
tially high impact natural hazard events across the world. This could render current national and local
strategies for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation obsolete in many countries;
• Shifting rainfall patterns and greater variability in precipitation poses a risk to 70% of global agricul-
ture that is rain-fed and the 1.3 billion people dependent on degrading agricultural land;
• The concentrated impact due to a single disaster type in some countries provides an opportunity for a
more focused approach on disaster risk reduction. However, COVID-19 demonstrates the need for a
systemic, multihazard approach in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world;
• There is a requirement for strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk with clear
vision, competence, plans, guidelines, funding and coordination across sectors and in a manner which
takes account of the increasingly systemic nature of disaster risk;
• Public and private investment in disaster risk prevention and reduction through structural and non-
structural measures needs to be stepped up to create disaster resilient societies.
References:
CRED—Human cost of disasters. An overview of the last 20 years 2000-2019. https://cred.be/sites/default/files/CRED-Disaster-Report-
Human-Cost2000-2019.pdf
Cred updates and recent publications
Two new articles published in scientific magazines:
• Guha-Sapir, D.; Scales, S.E.. Challenges in public health and epidemiology research in humanitarian settings: experiences from the
field. In: BMC Public Health, Vol. 20, no.1, p. 6p. (2020). doi:10.1186/s12889-020-09851-7
• Enenkel, M. ; Brown, M. E. ; Vogt, J. V. ; McCarty, J. L. ; Reid Bell, A. ; Guha-Sapir, D.; Dorigo, W. ; Vasilaky, K. ; Svoboda, M. ;
Bonifacio, R. ; Anderson, M. ; Funk, C. ; Osgood, D. ; Hain, C. ; Vinck, P.. Why predict climate hazards if we need to understand
impacts? Putting humans back into the drought equation. In: Climatic Change, Vol. 00, no.00, p. 16p. (2020). doi:10.1007/s10584-
020-02878-0
One new report published: Froment, R.; van Loenhout, J.; Vanwambeke, S.; Guha-Sapir, D. STENTOR: Use of Earth Observation Satellites
to Improve Effectiveness of Humanitarian Operations ; 2020. https://cred.be/sites/default/files/STENTORReport.pdf
Two mapping tools developed at national and subnational levels are available (after registration) at: https://public.emdat.be/mapping
@CREDUCL
