What Causes Economic Losses from Natural Disasters in India?

Abstract

The reported economic losses due to natural disasters show an increasing trend over time for India. This is due to the influence of three factors: bio-physical drivers, exposure and vulnerability. Normalising the influence of exposure and vulnerability of socio-economic factors, this chapter potentially detects the influence of climate, caused by natural climate variability as well as anthropogenic climate change, in determining the damages from natural disasters. It analyses the trends in both the reported and normalised economic losses from natural disasters in India during 1964 and 2012. Similar analysis is also carried out for a subset of major disaster events like cyclonic storms and floods. No significant trend is found either for the normalised damage costs from natural disasters or for individual extreme events like floods and cyclonic storms. The findings suggest that the increases in damage costs is due to higher exposure and vulnerability of the socio-economic conditions of those affected, and recommends for additional investments on infrastructure to strengthen the adaptive capacity of the vulnerable sections with respect to the socio-economic factors.