GAR 2015 Main Report

The standard way in which disaster damage is measured involves a separate examination of the number of fatalities, injuries, and people otherwise affected, and the financial damage that natural disasters cause. A new way to aggregate measures of disaster impact aims to overcome many of the difficulties previously identified in the literature, including the difficulty of assessing overall disaster impact, the need to conduct costbenefit analyses that take different disaster impacts into account, and the problem of assessing damage relative to its value in different countries.

Despite some conceptual differences, the new approach proposed is similar to the World Health Organization’s calculation of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost from the burden of diseases and injuries.3 All measures of disaster impact are converted into “life years” to allow a worldwide comparison of trends in disaster losses. The advantage of this new measurement is that it accounts for the more general impact of disasters on human welfare and enables a comparison of these impacts across the globe.4

Part I

(Source:

Noy, 2014

Noy, Ilan. 2014,A New Non-Monetary Global Measure of the Direct Impact of Natural Disasters, Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: UNISDR..
Click here to view this GAR paper.

Box I.1 An innovative way to measure disaster impact

As the HFA comes to its close, all the indications are that its expected outcome, to achieve “The substantial reduction of disaster losses, in lives and in the social and economic assets of communities and countries”, has only been partially achieved.

Disaster mortality remains high: 1.6 million people have died in internationally reported disasters since the start of the IDNDR in 1990, making for an average of around 65,000 deaths per year. Yet this number is far less than the average of 1.24 million deaths in traffic accidents every year1 or the average of 1 million who die from tuberculosis every year. From that perspective, disaster mortality could be considered a less critical global problem than disease or accidents.

Economic losses from internationally reported disasters have also grown steadily since 1990, reaching an estimated annual average of US$200 billion (Munich Re., 2013

Munich Re. 2013,2013 Natural Catastrophe Year in Review, January 2014. Munich.. .

). However, this is only a fraction of global GDP, which was close to US$75 trillion in 2013,2 and fails to ring the same alarm bells as the US$4 trillion in losses to the banking sector during the global financial crisis of 20072009 (IMF, 2009

IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2009,Global Financial Stability Report: Responding to the Financial Crisis and Measuring Systemic Risks, World Economic and Financial Surveys. April 2009. Washington, D.C.. .

Part of the reason why disaster losses have not created the same political or economic

imperative to address the risks of disease or financial risks may be the way in which they are measured. In reality, disasters affect households, communities and countries due to the combined impact of mortality, morbidity and damaged or destroyed housing, infrastructure and agriculture. Separate measurements of mortality and economic loss fail to capture the full dimensions of disaster.

To address this problem, and for illustrative purposes, the concept of human life years can be used to provide a better representation of disaster impact, as it provides a metric describing the time required to produce economic development and social progress. The loss of human life years, be it through disasters, disease or accidents, is therefore a way of measuring setbacks to social and economic development (Box I.1).

When disaster losses are expressed using human life years as a common currency ( GAR 13 paper

Noy, 2014

), their potential scale comes into clearer focus. Between 1980 and 2012, more than 1.3 billion life years were lost worldwide in internationally reported disasters (ibid.), making for an annual average of 42 million life years. Expressed in this way, disaster loss is roughly equivalent to the 43 million life years lost annually from tuberculosis, about 20 per cent lower than the life years lost

	The standard way in which disaster damage is measured involves a separate examination of the number of fatalities, injuries, and people otherwise affected, and the financial damage that natural disasters cause. A new way to aggregate measures of disaster impact aims to overcome many of the difficulties previously identified in the literature, including the difficulty of assessing overall disaster impact, the need to conduct costbenefit analyses that take different disaster impacts into account, and the problem of assessing damage relative to its value in different countries. Despite some conceptual differences, the new approach proposed is similar to the World Health Organization’s calculation of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost from the burden of diseases and injuries.3 All measures of disaster impact are converted into “life years” to allow a worldwide comparison of trends in disaster losses. The advantage of this new measurement is that it accounts for the more general impact of disasters on human welfare and enables a comparison of these impacts across the globe.4 40 Part I (Source: Noy, 2014 x Noy, Ilan. 2014,A New Non-Monetary Global Measure of the Direct Impact of Natural Disasters, Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: UNISDR.. Click here to view this GAR paper. .) Box I.1 An innovative way to measure disaster impact As the HFA comes to its close, all the indications are that its expected outcome, to achieve “The substantial reduction of disaster losses, in lives and in the social and economic assets of communities and countries”, has only been partially achieved. Disaster mortality remains high: 1.6 million people have died in internationally reported disasters since the start of the IDNDR in 1990, making for an average of around 65,000 deaths per year. Yet this number is far less than the average of 1.24 million deaths in traffic accidents every year1 or the average of 1 million who die from tuberculosis every year. From that perspective, disaster mortality could be considered a less critical global problem than disease or accidents. Economic losses from internationally reported disasters have also grown steadily since 1990, reaching an estimated annual average of US$200 billion (Munich Re., 2013 x Munich Re. 2013,2013 Natural Catastrophe Year in Review, January 2014. Munich.. . ). However, this is only a fraction of global GDP, which was close to US$75 trillion in 2013,2 and fails to ring the same alarm bells as the US$4 trillion in losses to the banking sector during the global financial crisis of 20072009 (IMF, 2009 x IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2009,Global Financial Stability Report: Responding to the Financial Crisis and Measuring Systemic Risks, World Economic and Financial Surveys. April 2009. Washington, D.C.. . ). Part of the reason why disaster losses have not created the same political or economic imperative to address the risks of disease or financial risks may be the way in which they are measured. In reality, disasters affect households, communities and countries due to the combined impact of mortality, morbidity and damaged or destroyed housing, infrastructure and agriculture. Separate measurements of mortality and economic loss fail to capture the full dimensions of disaster. To address this problem, and for illustrative purposes, the concept of human life years can be used to provide a better representation of disaster impact, as it provides a metric describing the time required to produce economic development and social progress. The loss of human life years, be it through disasters, disease or accidents, is therefore a way of measuring setbacks to social and economic development (Box I.1). When disaster losses are expressed using human life years as a common currency (Noy, 2014 x Noy, Ilan. 2014,A New Non-Monetary Global Measure of the Direct Impact of Natural Disasters, Background Paper prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: UNISDR.. Click here to view this GAR paper. ), their potential scale comes into clearer focus. Between 1980 and 2012, more than 1.3 billion life years were lost worldwide in internationally reported disasters (ibid.), making for an annual average of 42 million life years. Expressed in this way, disaster loss is roughly equivalent to the 43 million life years lost annually from tuberculosis, about 20 per cent lower than the life years lost	Page 1 Page 10 Page 20 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 ->Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 60 Page 70 Page 80 Page 90 Page 100 Page 110 Page 120 Page 130 Page 140 Page 150 Page 160 Page 170 Page 180 Page 190 Page 200 Page 210 Page 220 Page 230 Page 240 Page 250 Page 260 Page 270 Page 280 Page 290 Page 300 Page 310