Natural Disasters Data Book 1901-2000
ADRC 20th Century Asian Natural Disasters Data Book
foreword
Natural disasters have been increasing every year due to the various factors such as urbanization, population growth, destruction of natural environment and climate change. Further, Asian region accounts nearly 90 % of the total affected people in the world.
This human suffering is happening more in devloping countries, especialy poverty-stricken countries and also catastrophic natural disasters cause enoumous amount of economic losses, which sometimes exceed the GDP of these countries.
Natural disasters have a negative factor to inhibit the promotion of sustainable development and therefore it is essential to conduct comprehensive disaster measures in Asian region.
This data book including the disaster data of Asian region in the past 100 years, is compiled by ADRC, utilizing a disaster databse (EM-DATA) owned by CRED (the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Louvain Catholic University) in Belgium.
Furthermore, GLIDE Number Project, which ADRC proposed and has been promoting in cooperation with CRED, UN-OCHA and ReliefWeb, is applied to this data book.
This data book hopes to stimulate a process of learning from the past and applying to the future disaster measures.
August 2002 Satoru Nishikawa Executive Director Asian Disaster Reduction Center
Contents
1. Impact of Natural Disasters
1-1 Characteristics of Natural Disaster Damages
1-2 Sustainable Development and Natural Disasters
2. Regional Characteristics of Natural Disasters
2-1 Regional Proportion of Natural Disasters Occurrence in the World
2-2 Regional Characteristics of Natural Disasters in the World
1) Disaster Characteristics in Africa
2) Disaster Characteristics in America
3) Disaster Characteristics in Asia
4) Disaster Characteristics in Europe
5) Disaster Characteristics in Oceania
3. Overview of Natural Disasters in Member Countries