Human losses due to climate-related disasters: an urgent call for quality control
In this study, the authors provide insights into the missing data, highlighting the importance of data quality control to account for bias. Understanding where and why data is missing provides insights into whether trends can be attributed to true progress in disaster risk reduction or are merely statistical artifacts.
Missing data in climate impact databases are a source of major bias in disaster impact analyses and can mislead policy making. EMDAT, an international reference data source on disaster impacts, is often used without much quality control or consideration of data gaps. Ignoring these gaps undermines both the evaluation of disaster risk management activities and the evidence base for global policies for early warnings and disaster risk reduction.
EMDAT, considered a key data source on climate extremes and their human impacts, records casualty information for only one in three climatological disasters. In this study it is also underlined the pressing need for harmonization across other databases that are relevant for measuring the human impact of climate disasters and suggest new technologies to fill gaps. As major resource investments were requested during COP 28 (2023) to attenuate the impact of future disasters, more complete and convincing data on climate disasters and human impacts will be needed to better identify the efficiency of countermeasures.