Posted on 10/12/2020 10:01:08 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
A new United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) report confirms how extreme weather events have come to dominate the disaster landscape at the beginning of 21st century. Floods and storms were the most prevalent disaster events, followed by earthquakes, extreme temperatures, landslides, droughts, wildfires, volcanic activity and dry mass movement.
UNDRR used statistics from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) which records disasters which have killed ten or more people, affected 100 or more people, resulted in a declared state of emergency, or a call for international assistance.
There were 7 348 major natural disaster events from 2000 to 2019, with 1.23 million lives lost and 4.2 billion people affected, resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses.
This is a sharp increase over the previous 20-year period (1980 - 1999) when EM-DAT recorded 4 212 natural disasters worldwide, 1.19 million lives lost, 3.25 billion people affected, and approximately US$1.63 trillion in economic losses.
On average, there were 367 disaster events each year from 2000 to 2019, the majority of which were floods and storms (44% and 28%, respectively).
According to the report, much of the difference is explained by a rise in climate-related disasters, including extreme weather events: from 3 656 climate-related events (1980 - 1999) to 6 681 climate-related disasters in the period 2000 - 2019.
Floods and storms were the most prevalent disaster events.
The last twenty years have seen the number of major floods more than double, from 1 389 to 3 254, while the incidence of storms grew from 1 457 to 2 034.
There has also been a rise in geo-physical events including earthquakes and tsunamis which have killed more people than any of the other natural hazards under review in the report.
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 systemic nature of disaster risk, i.e. the overlap of events and the interplay between risk drivers such as poverty, climate change, air pollution, population growth in hazard-exposed areas, uncontrolled urbanization and the loss of bio-diversity, requires greater strengthening of disaster risk governance, the report states.
Asia suffered the highest number of disaster events.
In total, there were 3 068 disaster events in Asia, followed by 1 756 events in the Americas and 1 192 events in Africa.
The high frequency and impact of disasters in Asia is largely due to the size of the continent and landscapes that represent a high risk of natural hazards, such as river basins, flood plains, and seismic fault lines. Additionally, there are high population densities in many disaster-prone areas of the continent.
China reported 577 events, the United States of America 467, India 321 events, Philippines 304, and Indonesia 278 events. These countries all have large and heterogenous landmasses and relatively high population densities in at-risk areas.
Three mega-disasters occurred in the period: the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Other mass casualty events include the 2003 heatwaves in Europe which killed 72 200 across 15 European countries, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan which killed 73 300 people, and the 2008 earthquake in China which killed 87 500 people.
Floods have accounted for 44% of all disaster events from 2000 to 2019, affecting 1.6 billion people worldwide, the highest figure for any disaster type. This is the most common type of event with an average of 163 per year.
The most affected country by flooding in the past two decades was China, which experienced an average of 20 floods per year.
Over the two decades, floods in China affected a total of 900 million people, accounting for approximately 55% of people affected by flooding worldwide.
India is the 2nd most affected country by floods, with an average of 17 flood events per year and a total of approximately 345 million people affected.
The deadliest flooding events from 2000 to 2019 were the June 2013 floods in India (6 054 deaths), May 2004 floods in Haiti (2 665 deaths), and the July 2010 floods in Pakistan (1 985 deaths).
Floods have the highest impacts in Asia, as the continent experienced 41% of all flooding events and with a total of 1.5 billion people affected, accounted for 93% of people affected by floods worldwide.
Africa (763 flood events) and the Americas (680 flood events) experience significant flooding impacts as well. Many of these impacts are preventable since flooding, unlike most types of disasters, has affordable mechanisms of primary prevention, such as dams, dykes and drainage systems.
Storms, including hurricanes, cyclones and storm surges, killed nearly 200 000 people between 2000 and 2019, making storms the 2nd deadliest type of disaster worldwide, and the deadliest type of weather-related disaster in the past 20 years. The 2 043 storms recorded by EM-DAT during this period also make these events the second most frequent disaster type after flooding.
The third deadliest type of disaster is earthquake with 8% of all occurrences (552 occurrences), followed by extreme temperatures (6% / 432 occurrences), landslides (5% / 376), droughts (5% / 338), wildfires (3% / 238), volcanic activity (1% / 102) and dry mass movements (<1%, 13).
There has certainly been a sharp increase in the number of YouTube videos posted over the past 20 years.
[C]reation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.Romans 8:21-22.
There’s also been a huge increase in the technology used to collect that data, as well as the amount of data collected at new collection sites. Also, there’s almost a 75% increase in “disasters”, but only a 24% increase in the total affected. That suggests either better information that is timely (e.g., early warnings) or better implementation of changing technology (e.g., earthquake-proof buildings). Similar results for deaths.
Nonsense...
We just call things natural disasters that used to be “storms”
We have cute names for them, music, nonstop cable coverage, nattering politicians, hand wringing “scientists”, political activists...
Think of the Galveston Hurricane in 1900. It hit without warning, and between 6000 and 12000 people were killed. It was the deadliest natural disaster in US history. Global warming hadn't been invented yet. And radio communications was still in its mother's womb.
Such a storm taking the world by surprise could never happen today.
Well, duh, what did we expect? “The ERF has a fever.”
This is a sharp increase over the previous 20-year period (1980 - 1999) when EM-DAT recorded 4 212 natural disasters worldwide, 1.19 million lives lost, 3.25 billion people affected, and approximately US$1.63 trillion in economic losses.
Taking the middle years of each range, there was a 30% population increase over 20 years from 1990 to 2010. But there was only a slight increase in lives lost and number affected matched the population increae. The primary thing which increased sharply was the number of disasters which makes me think they are counting smaller "disasters".
The earth has been here for 4.5 billion years and they’ve been tracking this statistic since 1980... That’s lots of data to go by... Which means this is complete nonsense and essentially fake news.
Speaking of fake news..
“The earth has been here for 4.5 billion years”
Would someone PLEASE take a look at the surface of the earth. It’s bumps and bruises and mountains and volcanoes under the sea. This perfect earth is scarred and man didn’t build it.
Another waste of time and money. Proves nothing. No cause and effect.
I need to see a hurricane breakdown for the two periods. They don’t give it.
Out of billions of years is a twenty year comparison relevant?
These are just days before the day of the Lord.
But, what is a day to the Lord?
It is enough to know that He is mindful of us.
It is a good thing.
I Will keep looking up but, watching where I go.
Why should I live in day of His return?
It would be quite the honor, wouldn’t it?
Remain humble.
Great post and totally agree Bro!
dams “dykes” and drainage systems. Is Teo a he she or an it?
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