Natural Disaster and Disaster Risk Reduction Measures
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Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Risk management ( lcshac )
Economic impact analysis ( lcshac )
Genre:
non-fiction ( marcgt )

Notes

Summary:
This report supports DFIDs efforts to integrate disaster risk reduction (DRR) into development planning by providing an economic rationale for this process. It reviews the literatures assessing the economic impact of disasters, along with that which discusses the costs and benefits of DRR measures. Traditionally, the international community has focused almost exclusively on mounting humanitarian responses to disasters to the near complete neglect of investing in efforts to prevent them or mitigate their impacts when they occur. According to the report, this has mostly been a function of the distinct separation that has historically existed between development planners and the humanitarian relief community, but is also most critically related to a lack of systematic and concrete evidence regarding the benefits of DRR. Despite this history, empirical evidence shows that there is an increase in donor-related activities in DRR, mainly as result of two causes: 1) increase in the number of disasters (as a product of increasing vulnerabilities, climate change, and inappropriate human development) and 2) growing awareness of the inextricable link between disasters, development, and poverty. This document explores the literature on the macro- and microeconomic impact of disasters, highlighting difficulties in assessing all costs involved in disasters, particularly those beyond direct costs of damages to infrastructure, buildings, crops, etc. It then establishes a typology of DRR measures, which it utilizes to assess the potential costs and benefits of their employment. DRR measures are classified into: policy and planning; physical preventive measures; physical coping and adaptive measures; and community capacity building. The report finds that research on the economic impacts of disasters and DRR measures has not been adequately broached by the academic or practitioner communities. Methods for assessing each have not been well developed or systematically undertaken. Particularly of note is the lack of comparative analysis of the economic losses associated with disasters in countries that have implemented DRR measures vis-à-vis the ones that have not. Where research has been done regarding the economics of disaster, it has been found that disasters have a greater relative impact on the economies of developing countries. While it is estimated that DRR measures have a high cost-benefit ratio, the document also shows that they often have significant development benefits outside of simply preventing or mitigating the impact of disasters. ( ,, )
Subject:
General Risk Reduction
Citation/Reference:
(2005). Natural disaster and disaster risk reduction measures: a desk review of costs and benefits. The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Record Information

Source Institution:
Florida International University
Rights Management:
Refer to main document/publisher for use rights.
Resource Identifier:
FI13042661

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Aggregations:
Disaster Risk Reduction