A Global Expected Risk Analysis of Fatalities, Injuries, and Damages by Natural Disasters

Abstract

Natural disasters are hazardous geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological, and/or biological events that disturb human and natural environments, causing injuries, casualties, property damages, and business interruptions. Sound analysis is required regarding the effective hazard preparedness for, response to, mitigation of, and recovery from natural disasters. This research proposes an expected risk analysis model of world natural disasters recorded for 1900–2015 in the Emergency Disaster Database compiled by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster. The model produces consistent estimates of country-level risks in terms of human casualty and economic loss. The expected risks, along with their standard deviations, and ranks for world 208 countries, are analyzed with highlights for the top 10, 20 and 30 countries. Normalized expected risks by country population density and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) are also analyzed to further understand the relationships between risks and socio-economic measures. The results show that the model is a reasonably effective alternative to the existing risk analysis methods, based on the high correlations between the observed and estimated total risks. While riskier countries with higher expected risks and standard deviations are found in all continents, some developing countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, or developed countries, such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, are the hot-spots of global natural disasters. The model can be used as a new alternative approach to conduct country-level risk assessments or risk analyses of fatality, injured, affected, and damage—especially for countries’ governments to make sound disaster preparation, and mitigation decisions, sustainable policies, or plans regarding natural disasters.