Chapter 2

ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2003-Chapter 2: Natural Disasters and Sustainable Development
UN organizations, various international institutions, and governments have placed
importance on natural disasters and sustainable development.

Hence, it is of paramount importanceto analyze disaster trends in relation to variables of sustainable development, mainly humandevelopment and economic factors of the countries, especially the disaster affected ones. Following
sections will discuss these trends with appropriate graphs.

2.1 Human Development and Natural Disasters:
The Human Development Level of a country refers to the literacy rate and gross school
enrolment rate, per capita income, and health quality of that country.

These variables are significant

to disaster mitigation, preparedness planning, and disaster reduction and management strategies.
Higher Human Development Levels will make these planning and management strategies andfollow-up activities easier even in post disaster periods.

Human Development Levels are categorized

as high (Human Development Index; HDI above 0.8), medium (HDI between 0.5 and 0.79) and low(HDI less than 0.5), in accordance with UNDP specifications.

In this section, disaster characteristics

are subsequently calculated according to these Human Development Levels.
Income levels are also categorized as high (per capita income US$ 9,266 and above), uppermiddle (per capita income US $2,996~US $9,265), lower middle (per capita income US $756~US$2,995) and lower (per capita income less than US $755) according to World Bank definitions.
Disaster characteristics are identified in accordance to these income level specifications.

Thefollowing figures illustrate these factors at world and Asian regional levels.
Figure 9 to 12 indicate the relationship between the Human Development Level of thecountry and the impact of human suffering from disasters on society. Accordingly in 2002, it was quite１９Chapter 2

ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2003

evident that human loss and suffering were considerably higher in countries with low humandevelopment (LHD) as the ratio of those killed and affected by disasters to total population in LHD
countries was considerably higher than medium human development (MHD) or high humandevelopment (HHD) countries.

But in 2003 this trend is changed drastically for World perspective.

Due to the unexpected heat wave in the HHD countries in Europe, there were huge human sufferingsin those countries.

Since the human development index is considered for literacy rate, life

expectancy, and the per capita income, improvements, these variables could contribute immensely to
reducing the impact of natural disasters in a country.

Though in 2003 HHD countries suffered muchhuman loss in relation to their population size, it is seen here that developing and under developed
countries mostly posses low and medium Human Development Levels in Asia and throughout theworld, causing elevated levels of human loss in these countries thus urging better disaster management
approaches in these regions.

It is also quite evident from the following figures that the ratio of totallyaffected people to population is still high in the MHD and LHD countries stressing the importance ofmainstreaming the disaster reduction issues into national policy.

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ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2003

Figure 9:

Ratio of Number of People Killed to Population(Human Development Level) (2003) (World Summary)
LHD

MHD

HHD

00.000005

0.00001

0.000015

0.000020.000025

0.000030.000035

Source: ADRC, Japan, CRED-EMDAT, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium and UNDP, 2003

Figure 10:

Ratio of Number of People Killed to Population(Human Development Level) (2003) (Asia Summary)
LHD

MHD

HHD

00.000002

0.000004

0.000006

0.000008

0.00001

0.000012

Source: ADRC, Japan, CRED-EMDAT, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium and UNDP, 2003

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Chapter 2

ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2003

Figure 11:

Ratio of Number of To tally Affected Pe ople to Po pulation(H uman De ve lopme nt Le ve l) (2003) (World Summary)
LHD

MHD

HHD00.005

0.010.015

0.02

0.025

0.03

0.035

0.04

0.045

0.05

Source: ADRC, Japan, CRED-EMDAT, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium and UNDP, 2003

Figure 12:

Ratio o f Numbe r o f Totally Affe cte d Peo ple to Populatio n(H uman De ve lopme nt Le ve l) (2003) (Asia Summary)
LHD

MHD

HHD

00.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05

Source: ADRC, Japan, CRED-EMDAT, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium and UNDP, 2003

２２0.06