1. Tropical storm frequencies in North and Central America
2. Mortality weighted tropical storm hotspots in East Asia
3. Global natural hazards hotspots
 | Objective
Supporting natural hazards impact mitigation and adaptation by developing global-scale, multi-hazard risk indicators that identify key hotspots where the risks of natural disasters are particularly high. Methodology
This project took advantage of the recent development of a range of global-scale GIS datasets on the impact zones of different natural hazards—earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, floods, drought and cyclones (Fig.1)—as well as on population distribution. Overlaying the natural hazard impact zones with the digital population maps identified the number of people at risk in these zones.
The project team generated digital maps of mortality weighted hotspots for individual hazards (Fig.2) as well as multi-hazard hotspots indicators (Fig.3). These indicators are based on the number of people in the impact zones and the number of reported deaths attributed to specific natural hazards during the past two decades.
The project also generated a complementary indicator that estimates areas of high risk to significant economic losses due to natural hazards. Results
A main contribution of the project is to highlight areas that are at significant risk from multiple natural hazards. These ares require specific interventions to deal with the interlinked nature of many hazards, for instance, cyclones or earthquakes causing land slides. While the global analysis aids strategic analysis, the same approach can be applied at the regional or national level to support specific natural hazards mitigation strategies, emergency response planning or, more generally, to inform country assistance and poverty reduction strategies. Links
This project has been initiated by the World Bank's Hazards Management Unit with support from the UK Department for International Development and the Norwegian Government. It was implemented by a collaborative effort including the Development Research Group's Infrastructure and Environment Team and the institutions listed below. |
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