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3-4. Construction of Natural Disaster Database Linked to GDIN
It is extremely important to know what kind of countermeasures have been taken against what scale ofdisaster, what effects/review points/lessons have been obtained regarding catastrophic disasters that had
occurred in the past in order to devise various disaster prevention countermeasures in the future. The
consolidation of such information on disasters which occurred in Asia in this century into a database
will serve as an invaluable data asset for the next century.
At present, the statistical data regarding natural disasters that occurred in this century are accumulated
in the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Louvain Catholic University (CRED) in
Belgium and disaster related information is transmitted on the Internet from various organizations
beginning with the circumstantial report on the main disasters since 1980 from the United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA).
The Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC) has confirmed the necessity for constructing while
cooperating, the blanket database on natural disasters that had occurred in the 20th Century byeffectively utilizing these existing databases at the ADRC Experts Conference held in December 1999.
Furthermore, the ADRC has participated in the GDIN (refer to 2-1-4 (6)) and gave concrete suggestions
at the Canberra Assembly in March 2001 and its so-called Pre-meeting, the Asia-Pacific working Group
Assembly held in August 2000 at Canberra to positively promote such global activities.

3-4-1. Current Situation of Sharing Disaster Reduction Information
At present, the majority of organizations are conducting data collection and studies solely related tothemes assigned to them and transmitting the results on the Internet and other means. Additionally,
partial sharing is being planned through linking of related organizations on the Internet.
Amongst these, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) isalready promoting the tackling of sharing reliable disaster prevention data and have set up the
ReliefWeb to issue various global data related to disasters on the Internet. Detailed Situation Report
particularly those regarding the main disaster after 1980, are being carried so that outlines andcountermeasures can be tracked on document.
In addition, the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Louvain Catholic University(CRED) in Brussels, Belgium, is collecting statistical data on natural disasters and human disasters
centered on disasters totaling over 10 deaths that had occurred over the world after 1900 andtransmitting on the Internet. (After autumn of 1999. Refer to “The ADRC Annual Report 1999”.)
Others in universities and research organizations worldwide own respective disaster information of eacharea or target fields and some parts of these are being transmitted over the Internet.
However, since it is difficult to specify the dates of occurrence of flood damages or droughts from pastdisasters, different sources record different times and dates. Regarding the classification and names ofdisasters, since consolidated terms are not being used, in many cases it is often difficult to link the datatransmitted from separate data organizations as being the same disaster, particularly those that are very
old.
Regarding the disasters in Japan, the “Science Chart” and “Weather Almanac” are included in thedetailed and completely covered cases that had occurred in the past, and on the Internet, the table ofmain disasters inserted in the “Disaster White Paper” could be downloaded, but a database that covers
past disasters at a stroke is not publicized. Furthermore, when comparing these with the data from
CRED, many cases of unclear corresponding relationships and discrepancies in figures exist.
With above-mentioned ReliefWeb as the nucleus, GDIN is aiming at the organic and efficient utilizationof these existing data transmitting organizations.

3-4-2. Databook of Natural Disasters in Asia in the 20th Century
As recorded in the ADRC Annual Report (1999), ADRC signed an agreement on the memoranda with
CRED and conducted verifications of CRED’s EM-DAT. However, in most countries the information on
disasters of the past 100 years seldom remain available and the truth is that this verification process is33

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extremely difficult.
In member countries, it is very often the case when the data presently reported in EM-DAT is the only
data on the history of natural disasters in each country. Since there is no background of this valuable
data having been generally published and distributed in Asian nations, we published the “Asian Natural
Disaster Data Book for the 20th Century” in July 2000 after adding individual tables, various
calculations and analysis to the data collected in EM-DAT on member nations thinking that theverification process would be advanced by offering them to the use of many persons concerned as wellas drawing the attention of many persons.

3-4-3. Propositions to GDIN (Asia Pacific WG) by ADRC
Two years since the start of GDIN, conceptual discussions have been conducted actively on thenecessity for data sharing through 3 international conferences and from the 4th, it has been decided that
concrete discussions on what will be done at which location will be held in March 2001 at Canberra.
The so-called pre-meeting, Working Group Conference of Asia-Pacific area was held at Canberra in
August 2000. At this conference, the ADRC made several proposals, taking the following backgroundinto consideration, for items which will initially be required for developing future GDIN activities, as
an organization with the experience of already concretely promoting the sharing of disaster reduction
data with 23 Asian nations. Each group organization had agreed on promoting the same.
1) ADRC’s initial idea on the comprehensive database
The ADRC has been aiming at the construction of a blanket database covering the statistical data ofhistorical disasters that had occurred in Asia in the past, emergency measures both internal and externaland lessons from them.
Initially, we thought of a database that will link related data on one disaster dispersed worldwide bycreating a table of statistical data on disaster names, time/date, main damages, and based on this,retrieve each individual disaster related data on the Internet as much as possible, and to hyper-link these
individually.
However, tremendous work is necessary in the process of retrieving each related data one by one to linkthem due to the inconsistency in terms or differences in times/ dates as mentioned above. Moreover,once constructed, links are highly likely to be cut off if a data transmitting source changes or rearranges
the database structure. Although the database may function immediately after construction, it will stopfunctioning eventually. On the other, it has potential problems such as need to spend considerable timeand efforts for maintenance.
In view of the above, the ADRC proposed the following:2)

Proposition (Unique ID Project) to GDIN by ADRC
(1) Adoption of across the world “Unique ID” for past disasters
Incidentally, we though that data dispersed around the world can be used effectively and efficiently ifstatistical data and related data of past disasters are linked efficiently to construct an integral database,and if individual, non-duplicating ID code per disaster were attached and related data transmittingorganizations were to release each of the database by using the codes in the Internet.
International consensus would be necessary to decide on the ID code, but as a suggestion, we proposed
the ID code (4 digits for the year + serial number for order of occurrence within the year) used by thestatistical database of EM-DAT at Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Louvain
Catholic University (CRED) as a candidate. The reason is that as mentioned above, the database covers
the statistical data of 12,000 human and natural disasters that had occurred across the world after 1900,
and no other database exceeding this detailed database exists. Therefore, if the CRED ID number were
to be attached to every disaster handled by the related organizations, it can be used as individual ID
codes commonly across the world for past disasters.
(2) Adoption of globally common unique ID code related to the latest disaster data
On the other, it is expected that the common code for the latest disaster (the current disaster) could be
decided immediately and attached to the data transmitted by related organizations, the collection ofrelated data will be effected speedily and efficiently and to function effectively at policy decision that34

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necessitate urgency.
Regarding the common code for the latest disaster, we have suggested that it is desirable for ReliefWeb,
the data transmitting UN disaster reducing organization that is supplementing disasters occurring
worldwide on 24 hour basis, to conduct the data collection since data collection at CRED is conductedby confirmed values after some months from occurrence of disaster.
(3) Merits of adoption
The following merits could be considered by adopting this ID code:
・ Disaster data owned by many organizations could be related easily at retrieval per item
・ By developing retrieval engines focusing on necessary items for the organization, the necessary
data could be automatically retrieved / indicated on the same page without retrieving each item perorganization. (Observe the problems in the next item)
・ Thus, the inspection of the same data will become possible by using this code for direct retrieval
even when the database designing had been changed by each organization and changes of retrieval
method by retrieving side could be conducted easily.
(4) Problems on adoption
However we believe that it is necessary to clear the following problems for such a system to function
effectively:
・ Presently, the lack of data, particularly those in the older eras are prevalent in the CRED database,necessary addition/exclusion amendments are to be conducted by rechecking the data brought
together with each related organization.
・ The participating organizations of GDIN will need to attach this ID code on their respective
databases.
・ When the insides of the database cannot be retrieved directly due to the server structure of eachorganization or security reasons, a new database with ID code attached to the metadata(information on stored location) of each organization would become necessary.
(5) Further use of unique ID
It is desirable to create an environment to facilitate retrieval by devising integration of other items topromote further data sharing in the future.
Effective extraction and comparative studies will become possible if each organization matches
whatever data that can be standardized as much as possible, such as classified names for countries anddisasters, statistical data items, contents, names of related organizations or order of data.
Regarding this standardization of disaster reduction data, a separate “Standardization Working Group”
exists in the GDIN Working Group and the integration of items will be begun initially to continue onto
the tackling of further standardization in this Working Group.

3-4-4. Adoption of Unique ID at the 4th GDIN Conference in Canberra 2001
The 4th GDIN Conference was held from March 20 to 23 2001 in the Australian capitol of Canberra
with the participation of approximately 250 persons from disaster reduction data related organizations
over the world.
This time, Emergency Management Australia was the host and persons related to disaster prevention
from ReliefWeb of OCHA, UNICCEF, OECD, UNHCR, NASA, NOAA, COE (Hawaii), Red Cross(USA, Australia), national governments (China, Korea, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia,
New Zealand from member countries of ADRC), universities and enterprises had participated.
At this Conference, concrete future plans and organization management methods (business plan) werediscussed from the discussion of conceptual necessity to promote the former disaster prevention data.
1) Adjustments with related organizations after the Asia-Pacific Working Group Conference
After suggesting the unique ID Project at the Asia-Pacific Working Group Conference in august 2000,
the ADRC established a concrete proposal, sent it to the GDIN Secretariat and submitted to the Web of
GDIN virtual conference, Asia-Pacific Working Group to devise the wide notification of persons
concerned.

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As the result, we received an extremely favorable response immediately from Ms. Alta Haggarty ofReliefWeb, UN-OCHA on the effectiveness of this Project and received a mail to the effect that they
will cooperate actively with this Project in the future. Meanwhile, we received the comment from theManager, Ms. Debarati Guha-Sapir of CRED of Belgium who is proposing the use of this unique ID.
The contents mentioned that it is extremely felicitous that the CRED ID code be used as the world
standard and are anticipating the future developments.
We received advice from the former director of Emergency Management Australia, Mr. Alan Hodges ona more effective expression of the proposal on this Project. Moreover, we received comments from
Emergency Management, New Zealand, and COE of Hawaii to the extent that apart from the common
numbers, the code numbers for the year of occurrence, name of country, district, and disaster category
should also be uniformly expressed as database.
In response to these comments, we explained and gained understanding on the basic concept of thisProject--that this Project aims not to construct a new database but to create an environment foreffectively sharing the dispersed data.
2) Pilot Project by ADRC
In order to indicate the effectiveness of this Project concretely at the March 2001 Canberra conference,
ADRC created a pilot database using the unique ID with the cooperation of various organizations andplanned to hold the demonstration to show that the database will be automatically linked by the retrieval
engine when equipped with the unique ID. Then, ADRC attached the CRED code numbers to alldisasters cases from July 1998 reported in the latest disaster reduction data of ADRC, and amended the
database structure so that when retrieval is implemented using the CRED ID number from outside, thecorresponding page of the latest disaster reduction data is returned.
Additionally, CRED and ReliefWeb buttons are created at the top of each page of the latest disaster
reduction data. Regarding CRED, since it is presently operated in the form of downloading Excel data,
this download data is temporarily transferred to access and start operation in the form of one data
indicated on one access card with the CRED ID. As ReliefWeb is already equipped with a retrieval
engine, automatic retrieval can be facilitated when the CRED ID is added. However, as it can only
retrieve by year/month, country names and disaster names at present, it was made to indicate retrieval
results by keyword retrieval.
Thus, on the outside, the data from CRED and ReliefWeb are automatically linked by the latest disaster
reduction data of ADRC.
3) Presentation at the 4th GDIN Conference in Canberra 2001
ADRC gave a presentation of this Project at the Asia-Pacific Working Group Conference held the day
before this conference while giving a presentation of this Project at the actual conference together withan explanation on CRED given by Dr. Glen Shaw who was engaged with the management of EM-DAT
at CRED. Furthermore, we were asked to attend the three subcommittees (Asia-Pacific Area
Subcommittee, Subcommittee for promoting data sharing, Subcommittee for examining standardization
for data sharing) and explanations of the Project or discussion with those concerned were effected
respectively.
As the result, before the last day of the Conference, this Project was nominated as one of the pilot
projects to be conducted at GDIN. When we gave a presentation of this Project again on the final day, it
was evaluated as the most effective project and was selected as one of the four pilot projects.
The contents of the agreed project are:・ Regarding the disasters in the past, already existing code numbers used by CRED that are attachedto disasters in the past will be the code number common throughout the world
・ Every data organization shall attach the CRED code number to the disaster data of the past in theirproperty
・ Every data organization shall amend the CRED data depending on demand
・ Every data organization shall display the database on the Internet in a form that is accessible fromoutside・ Regarding the disasters that may occur in the future, ReliefWeb will disclose them after attaching
the numbers, after which each organization can use them. (CRED will confirm this number)・ The search engine to retrieve these data will be developed and publicized36

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・ In future, the ADRC, ReliefWeb of UN-OCHA and CRED will cooperate and promote
During the Conference, China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, NASA, COE as well as the threeorganizations promoting this Project declared their intention to cooperate.
The main disaster prevention data organizations of the world decided to adopt this common number. In
the future, organizations using this common number will gradually be increased to widen the ring of
sharing the disaster prevention data.
Lastly, at the end of the Conference, an award was specially presented to ADRC’s Senior Researcher,
Mr. Masahiko Murata who proposed and promoted this Project.

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