1. Home
  2. Knowledge Base | PreventionWeb
  3. Themes

Disaster losses

Disaster losses encompass human, economic, non-economic, and environmental costs of disasters. This theme covers quantified direct and indirect losses.

This theme includes the assessment, documentation, and analysis of both immediate and long-term consequences resulting from disasters. It addresses direct physical damage to infrastructure, indirect economic losses, and quantified social ramifications on affected populations (non-economic costs). It also includes the methodologies and technologies used to measure and record these impacts, the policies and practices aimed at mitigating and compensating for losses, as well as trends of future losses.

Explore the following supporting resources:

Small-scale and slow-onset disasters—like local floods, landslides, and droughts—are often ignored in official statistics, even though their combined impact can be just as damaging as large-scale disasters.

Latest Disaster losses additions in the Knowledge Base

Uploaded on
Aerial photo showing extensive hurricane damage in a residential area.
Update
Lower losses, growing risks: the disaster review for the first half of 2026

In the first 6 months of the year, disasters caused worldwide losses estimated at US$112bn. Of that, only US$44bn were insured, representing a 60% insurance gap. Losses were below the inflation-adjusted 10-year average and well below the 5-year average.

Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft (Munich Re)
Towards Comprehensive Economic Assessments of Climate Change Impacts thumbnail
Documents and publications
Towards comprehensive economic assessments of climate change impacts

This paper reviews key strengths and limitations of widely used economic modelling approaches for assessing climate change impacts. Authors find none of the modelling approaches can comprehensively assess both direct and indirect climate change impacts.

Economics of Disasters and Climate Change (Springer)
Update
3 years after Maui wildfires: Employment, housing improve while mental health remains a concern, report finds

Latest findings from the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study found that recovery from the August 2023 blaze “is underway, but it remains uneven,” as adults and children who survived the fire show signs of the physical and mental health toll.

Maui Now
Update
The hidden economic bill of Nepal’s monsoon disasters

Every year, rescue helicopters, collapsed bridges, damaged homes and rising death tolls dominate news for a few days. But families, farmers, businesses and local governments have to bear the economic burden of the disaster even after floodwaters recede.

The Kathmandu Post
Update
We received no alert, say leaders of First Nations communities razed by Canadian wildfires

Chiefs in Ontario say they were left to self-evacuate before homes burned to ground, after being told there was no imminent threat.

Guardian, the (UK)
Update
France records more than 5,700 excess deaths during June heatwave

Figures come as large parts of southern Europe endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures.

Guardian, the (UK)
Update
Millions face long-term coastal flooding risk in UK without climate action, scientists warn

A ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ suggests need for large-scale movement of populations away from reshaped coast.

Guardian, the (UK)
Positioning Nepal to access the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage: recommendations to untap essential finance
Documents and publications
Positioning Nepal to access the fund for responding to loss and damage: recommendations to untap essential finance

This policy brief examines Nepal's opportunity to leverage the Barbados Implementation Modalities (BIM) start-up phase to access the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD).

Department for International Development
Uploaded on