2020 Global natural disaster assessment report

By sorting out the flood disaster losses in China from 2009 to 2018, focusing on the flood disasters in south- ern China that occurred in the summer of 2020, and comparing them with typical flood events in history, the report finds that China has successfully mitigated major flood losses through a series of measures of integrated flood disaster risk reduction. The results of the analysis of historical disaster losses show that in addition to single loss, attention should be paid to cumulative loss in research and practice of flood risk management; in the future, while strengthening the prevention and control of flood events of medium intensity and above, closer attention should also be paid to small and frequent flood disaster events so as to reduce flood-related fatalities.

Compared to the average over the last 30 years (1990-2019), this report finds that the occurrence and intensity of global disasters were generally at a lower level in 2020. Major natural disasters in 2020 were 4% less in frequency, 73% lower in deaths, 50% less in the population affected and 29% more in direct economic losses. In 2020, the frequency of extreme temperatures around the world was low, but the number of deaths from such events was the most, reaching 6343; flood disasters were the most frequent, 43% more than historic levels and causing 6171 deaths, but the flood-related deaths were 7% less than the historical average; the direct economic losses caused by storm disasters were large, reaching USD 93.2 billion and 64% more than historic levels; there were fewer strong earthquakes, with relatively small disaster losses; the number of deaths from wildfires decreased, but the direct economic losses were 172% higher than those in history.