Natural Disasters Data Book 2023
Background
ADRC publishes the Natural Disaster Databook annually to provide statistical and analytical overview of disaster and COVID-19 data. For 2023, datasets from the Emergency Event Database (EM-DAT) and the World Health Organization (WHO) were respectively downloaded on 25 March 2024 and 10 July 2024 for analytical overview. With regard to natural disaster, the analysis covers occurrences of disaster events, deaths, people affected, and economic losses focusing on seven disaster types: drought, earthquake, extreme temperature, flood, storm, wildfire, and volcanic activity. With regard to COVID-19, the analysis shows the trend of confirmed cases and deaths (Annex 1: Notes on the Sources of Data).
In general, the statistical overview is focused on comparing the trend in 2023 with the trend in the past 30 years, and presented in three parts:
• Section 2 compares the natural disaster data of 2023 with the annual average of the last 30-year (1993-2022)
• Section 3 compares the climate-related disaster data of 2023 with the annual average of the last 30-year (1993-2022)
• Section 4 analyzes COVID-19 data up to 2023 since the World Health Organization declared it as a global pandemic on 11 March 2020 by comparing the global trend with the situations of ADRC member countries
Of the 374 disaster occurrences recorded in 2023, the Türkiye-Syria earthquakes of 6 February was the most notable event due its massive impacts: over 55,000 deaths, more than 23 million people affected, and staggering economic losses of over USD100 billion. While this Databook can show the general data on deaths, people affected, and economic losses, it cannot show the detailed disaggregated data of impacts by gender, location, or sector. In other words, this Databook will not show how many of the deaths are male or female, how many of the houses destroyed are in rural or urban areas, or which sector accounts for the greatest economic losses. Instead, this Databook simply shows an overview of trends (whether increasing or decreasing) on disaster occurrences and its impacts. By providing an overview of the trends, readers may gain curiosity to investigate the reasons behind them.
If we look at the disaster occurrences in 2023, the recorded number of events (374 events) is higher by 13% compared to the annual average for the past 30 years (1993-2022), which is 330 events/year. The most frequent occurrences were floods (44% or 163 events), storms (37% or 139 events), and earthquakes (9% or 32 events). As observed, devastating floods were experienced in India, Guatemala, Tanzania, Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia, Philippines, Italy, and Congo. Storms affected Libya (Daniel), Malawi (Freddy), India (Michaung), China (Doksuri), and Mexico (Otis). Earthquakes struck Türkiye Syria, Morocco, and Afghanistan while droughts lingered in Indonesia and United States of America. Remaining as the most prone region in the world, many of these disasters were in Asia. Data in the region shows an increasing number of disaster occurrences in 2023 with 152 events compared to the annual average for the past 30 years (1993-2022), which is 132 events/year. We observed that in terms of deaths, there is an increasing trend both globally and in Asia. In terms of people affected, there is a decreasing trend both globally and in Asia, which can be attributed to the improvements in disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures. In terms of economic losses, the data shows an increasing trend both globally and in Asia. However, one significant observation in 2023 is that while economic losses generally show an increasing trend, it is not the case for flood. Globally, economic losses from floods in 2023 is lower (USD 20.37 billion) compared to the annual average of the past 30 years (USD 30.06 billion/year). Similar trend is observed in Asia, where economic losses from flood in 2023 (USD 0.17 billion) is lower compared to the 30-year average (USD 18.21 billion/year).
Since climate change is attributed as one of the reasons for the increasing disaster trend (i.e., rising temperature increases the moisture the atmosphere can hold, resulting in more storms and heavy rains), this Databook also looks at the trend of climate-related disasters, particularly drought, storm, flood, and extreme temperature. In 2023, global temperature reached exceptionally high, close to 1.50C limit. In particular, temperatures from June onwards made 2023 the warmest year on record, overtaking by a large margin 2016, the previous warmest year. Globally, climate-related disasters in 2023 recorded 322 events, which is higher than the annual average of the last 30 years (1993-2022) of 286/year. If we break it down by disaster type, it shows flood with 151 events, storm with 101 events, extreme temperatures with 18 events, and drought with 16 events. As recorded, the frequency of flood and storm occurrences consistently increase since 1993. Like the global trend, climate-related disasters in Asia are higher in 2023 with 121 events compared to the annual average of the last 30 years (1993 to 2022) with 111 events/year. If we breakdown the climate-related disasters of 2023, it shows flood with 61 events, storm 41 events, extreme temperatures with 5 events, and droughts with 4 events.
COVID-19 data (i.e., confirmed cases and deaths) provides useful information for governments and stakeholders to decide whether to sustain early warning, surveillance, and travel advisories. Since the cases and deaths remarkably declined in May 2023, many countries around the world had lifted all COVID-19 travel restrictions (e.g., proof of vaccination to enter the country). Consequently, a number of countries had discontinued reporting the COVID-19 situations to the World Health Organization (WHO). Using such limited information, we noted that in 2023, a cumulative total of 773,940,523 confirmed cases and 7,015,982 deaths were reported. The data showed that the highest number of confirmed cases on a single day was reported on 19 December 2022 with 44.20 million cases, and this drastically declined in the beginning of 2023 until the end of the year. Likewise, the number of deaths had also significantly declined in 2023. The explanations for these can be largely attributed to the improvements in treatments, health measures, widespread vaccination, and natural immunity. As far as the ADRC member countries are concerned, the number of deaths from COVID-19 also significantly declined since the beginning of 2023 until the end of that year.
Table of Contents
1. Background
2. Natural Disaster Data
2.1. Global Disaster Data
2.2. Asian Disaster Data
3. Climate Related Disasters
3.1. Global trend in climate-related disasters
3.2. Asian trend in climate-related disasters
4. COVID-19 Data
4.1. Global Situation
4.2. COVID-19 Situation in ADRC Member Countries