Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015
Making development sustainable: The future of disaster risk management


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50
Part I - Chapter 2
from disasters is not statistically significant.
However, it is important to note some important regional differences in this context. Between 1980 and 2010, GDP per capita grew by 703 per cent in East Asia and the Pacific and by 293 per cent in South Asia. This development outpaced the growth in exposure in both regions, meaning that economic loss risk actually diminished
in relative terms. In contrast, in income groups with more sluggish economic growth such as the OECD, economic loss risk rose faster than GDP per capita.
At the same time, while absolute economic loss is concentrated in higher-income countries, in relative terms it is a far greater problem for lowincome countries (Figure 2.8).
Box 2.2 The Central European floods
During an unusually wet spring in Central Europe, groundwater levels were high and soils already were saturated when exceedingly high levels of rainfall occurred in late May and early June 2013, leading to severe flooding of the Elbe and Danube rivers and their tributaries. Rainfall levels with a 100-year return period were recorded,7 resulting in the evacuation of 52,500 people in Germany alone and 25 deaths across the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. Total economic losses across Central Europe have been estimated at between US$14.7 billion and US$22 billion (EM-DAT;8 Munich Re, 2014

Munich Re. 2014,After the floods, Topics Geo: Natural catastrophes 2013. Analyses, assessments, positions. 2014 Issue. Munich.. .
; Zurich Insurance, 2014

Zurich Insurance. 2014,Risk Nexus: Central European floods 2013: a retrospective, Flood resilience review 05.14.. .
). `

The events of 2002 and 2013 were by far the two greatest floods in Germany since 1900 (EM-DAT, 2014). While many areas were affected just as severely or even more so in 2013 than in 2002, the reduced loss suggests that investments were made in risk reduction (Munich Re, 2014

Munich Re. 2014,After the floods, Topics Geo: Natural catastrophes 2013. Analyses, assessments, positions. 2014 Issue. Munich.. .
; Zurich Insurance 2014). However, the fact that ten of Germany’s eleven US$1 billion disasters have occurred since 1990 clearly points to increasing risks.
9
(Source: Munich Re, 2013: Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE, as of January 2014.)
Figure 2.7 Overall and insured losses worldwide, 1980-2013
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