Chapter 2

ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2002

Chapter 2: Natural Disasters and Sustainable Development
UN organizations, various international institutions, and governments haveplaced importance on natural disasters and sustainable development. Hence it is ofparamount importance to analyze disaster trends in relation to variables of sustainable
development, mainly human development and economic factors of the countries,
especially the disaster affected ones. Following sections will discuss these trends withappropriate graphs and figures.

2.1 Human Development and Natural Disasters:
The Human Development Level of a country refers to the literacy rate and grossschool enrolment rate, per capita income, and the health quality of that country. Thesevariables are significant to disaster mitigation, preparedness planning, and disaster
reduction and management strategies. Higher human development levels will makethese planning and management strategies and follow-up activities easier even in postdisaster periods. Human Development Levels are categorized as high (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 andabove), upper middle (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. The disaster characteristics are calculated in accordance tothese income level specifications. The following figures illustrate these factors at world
and Asian regional levels.

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ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2002

Figures 9 to 12 indicate the relationship between the Human Development
Level of the country and the impact of human suffering from disasters on society.
Accordingly it is quite evident that human loss and suffering are considerably higher incountries with low human development (LHD) as the ratio of those killed and affected bydisasters to total population in LHD countries is considerably higher than medium
human development (MHD) or high human development (HHD) countries. This dataclearly indicates the importance that the level of human development holds for thedesign and implementation of disaster mitigation and management strategies. Since thehuman development index considers with literacy rate, life expectancy, and the percapita income, improvements in these variables could contribute immensely to reducing
the impact of natural disasters in a country. It is seen here that developing and underdeveloped countries mostly posses low and medium Human Development Levels in Asiaand throughout he world, causing elevated levels of human loss in these countries thus
urging better disaster management approaches in these regions.
Figure 9:

Ratio of Number of Peopled Killed to Population(Human Development Level) (2002) (World Summary)
LHD

MHD

HHD

00.000002

0.000004

0.000006

0.000008

0.00001

Source: ADRC, Japan, CRED-EMDAT, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium and UNDP, 2002

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ADRC-Natural Disasters Data Book-2002

Figure 10:

Ratio of Number of People Killed to Population(Human Development Level) (2002) (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, 2002

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