3. Collection and Dissemination of Disaster Information

3. Collection and Dissemination of Disaster
Information
ADRC has been disseminating many different types of information related to disaster risk
reduction on its website (http://www.adrc.asia) aiming at ensuring appropriate disaster response,mitigation, and preparedness activities

3-1. Disaster Risk Reduction Activities of MemberCountries
With assistance from its 30 member countries, ADRC has been collecting information onsystems, plans, and specific measures of each country’s disaster risk reduction as well as thesituation of natural disasters. ADRC has also been collecting information from related materials,
various countries/organizations and through Visiting Researchers from the ADRC member
countries and UNOCHA Office in Kobe.
ADRC will continue collecting and sharing information on the following items mainly:
1) Disaster management systems (legal frameworks, organizations, basic plans, and disastermanagement manuals), 2) Experiences of disaster response, and 3) Information on natural disasters(descriptions of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, etc., and resultingdamages).

3-1-1. Information Collection from Member Countries
In fiscal year 2015, as in the previous year, ADRC collected disaster risk reduction-related
information on member countries through the following methods.
(1) Information Provided from ADRC Member Countries
Besides the voluntary provision from the member countries, ADRC collected the information
on systems, plans, and specific measures of each country’s disaster reduction as well as situationsof ongoing natural disasters through Visiting Researchers (VR).
(2) Collecting Information through Participation in International Conferences
ADRC collected relevant information regarding progress of Hyogo Framework for Action(HFA), Sendai Framework for Action (SFA) and the latest DRR activities by participating ininternational conferences such as the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction(WCDRR) and the Asian Conference on Disaster Reduction which was held in Sendai, Japan onMarch 2015.
(3) Utilization of Internet
Taking advantage of internet, ADRC has been collecting disaster related information
efficiently. Internet will be more important to facilitate technical support and construct disaster
information databases. Internet also helps ADRC to collect related information provided byacademic research institutions and international organizations. Recently, ADRC has been using9Facebook as one of major social network services for providing the latest activities of Visiting
Researchers.
In fiscal year 2015, ADRC continued gathering information on disaster risk reduction systemsof member countries through requesting informations, field surveys, international conferences,and internet. Furthermore, ADRC updated country reports in cooperation with Visiting
Researchers.
Table 3-1-1-1lists the reports provided by counterparts in member countries. All these reports
are made available on ADRC website. Over recent years, disaster risk management organizations
in many countries have been actively promoting information dissemination on the internet.
ADRC website developed direct links to these websites which offer access to the latest
information.
Table 3-1-1-1

List of reports from ADRC member countries

Country

Year prepared

Armenia

2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2015

Azerbaijan

2011, 2014

Bangladesh

1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2013

Bhutan2008, 2013, 2014

Cambodia

1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2013

China

1998, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2012

India

1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2015

Indonesia

1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2012

Iran2013

Japan

1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2012

Kazakhstan

1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006

Korea

1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008

Kyrgyzstan

2005, 2006, 2012

Laos

1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006

Malaysia

1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011

Maldives

2013, 2014, 2015

Mongolia

1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013

Myanmar

2002, 2005, 2006, 2013

Nepal

1998, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014

Pakistan2005, 2006, 2009, 2015

Papua New Guinea

1998, 1999, 2005, 2006

Philippines

1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,
2014

Russia1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006

Singapore

1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006

10

3. Collection and Dissemination of Disaster Information
Sri Lanka

1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015

Tajikistan

1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006

Thailand

1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012

Uzbekistan

1998, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2013, 2015

Vietnam

1998, 1999, 2005, 2006

Yemen

2009, 2012, 2014

Country Reports includes the following topics provided by each member country.
I. Natural Hazards in the Country
1.1 Natural Hazards that may affect the country
1.2 Recent Major Disasters(Basic data of disasters, damage situation, response and recovery information)
II. Disaster Management System
2.1 Administration System
2.2 Legal System and Framework
2.3 Structure of Disaster Management
2.4 Priorities on Disaster Risk Management
III. Disaster Management Strategy, Policy and Plan
IV. Budget Size on National Level
V. Progress of the Implementation of Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA)
VI. Recent Major Projects on Disaster Risk Reduction
VII. Counterparts of ADRC

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3-1-2. Natural Disaster Data Book
Past disaster records are critical data in policy making, review, survey and analysis of disastermanagement plan. ADRC has signed an MOU on disaster data utilization with the Centre for
Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and conducted analyses on disaster impacts
based on the database, EM-DAT maintained by CRED.
For instance, 20th Century Data Book on Asian Natural Disasters, and its revision released in2000 and 2002 respectively featured disasters which hit its member countries while annual NaturalDisaster Data Book covers disaster characteristics in the world.
This section presents a summary of Natural Disaster Data Book 2014, which covers regional anddisaster-specific issues of the year and long term. The following Figures 3-1-2-2 and Tables 3-1-2-1
depict the results of analyses of national disaster and impacts in 2014.
According to EM-DAT recorded in 2014, 328 disaster events occurred, 18,740 people werekilled, more than107 million people were affected and economic damage reached 97 billion USD.
In the year 2014, more than 10,000 people were killed by Ebola epidemic in Africa. In Asia, nodisaster occurred that claimed more than 1,000 lives.
The earthquake that hit in China in August 2015
resulted in the disaster with the largest fatalities of731 of the year. It brought about 1,1 million affected
people and economic loss of 5 billion USD.
By region, Asia had largest shares in disasteroccurrence (43.6 %), killed people (31.3%), affected
people (86.2%) and the amount of damages (65.8%) in2014 as seen in Figure 1-3-2-2 and Table 1-3-2-1.
By disaster type, flood topped in disasteroccurrences (41.3%) while in the number of people
killed, epidemic had the largest share of 58.2%, andflood had the largest economic damage of 40.9%.
Compared with the previous year, in 2013, datashows increase in fatalities and decline in the numbersof disaster occurrences, people affected, and theamount of economic damages.

12Fig. 3-1-2-1. Natural Disaster
Data Book 2014

3. Collection and Dissemination of Disaster Information

Fig. 3-1-2-2. Impacts of Natural Disasters by Region 2014

Table 3-1-2-1. Impacts of Natural Disasters by Region 201413

3-1-3. Disaster Information Sharing Using GLIDE Numbers
GLIDE is the acronym for the GLobal unique disaster IDEntifier system, in which commonlyformatted but unique numbers are assigned to disasters all over the world. The GLIDE system was
first proposed by ADRC and has been adopted and used by more than 20 international organizations
and research institutes.
There are many organizations around the world that design and develop their own disasterdatabases freely accessible online. When a disaster occurs, information is distributed over theInternet not only by organizations in the affected countries but also by organizations and the mass
media in other countries. Whenever a disaster occurs in any part of the world, ADRC collects
information from websites of relevant organizations and worldwide news agencies, or by sending
e-mails to contact persons in the affected area. Over the course of its experience, ADRC came up
against several problems in collecting disaster information using these methods, including thefollowing.
①It requires considerable manpower to search Internet for websites of relevant individualorganizations every time a disaster occurs.

②

There is no standardized naming protocol for disasters. As many different names are given
to a certain single disaster by various organizations, even search engines such as Google orYahoo sometimes return no results.

③

Website links may be lost once the structure of particular organization's database or website
is modified.

The GLIDE system offers a solution to these problems. It will significantly improve theefficiency with which information on historical and ongoing disasters can be retrieved fromdatabases and websites.
At the Global Disaster Information Network (GDIN) Conference held in Canberra, Australia in
March 2001, ADRC proposed to develop a standardized coding system for managing information
on disasters around the world. This proposal was accepted and implemented as a pilot project by theGDIN. In 2004, glidenumber.net was jointly developed by ADRC and OCHA ReliefWeb, withtechnical assistance provided by LaRED. It is designed to issue new GLIDE numbers to disasters
immediately after they occur. Moreover, ADRC, the CRED, IRI/Columbia University, theUSAID/OFDA, the WMO, IFRC, UNDP, and ISDR Secretariat have agreed to use the GLIDE
number format as the standard for assigning disaster identification numbers.

14