Natural disasters: perspective paper - Stéphane Hallegatte

This paper starts by investigating benefits from early-warning systems in Europe, in terms of saved lives and reduced disaster asset losses. The analysis presented throughout the paper estimates that, in Europe, hydro-meteorological information and early-warning systems save several hundreds of lives per year, avoid between 460 million and 2.7 billion Euros of disaster asset losses per year, and produce between 3.4 and 34 billion of additional benefits per year through the optimization of economic production in weather-sensitive sectors. It then uses this evaluation to estimate the potential benefits of providing similar services in developing countries; (i) it assesses the other economic benefits that could be derived from the same hydro-meteorological information that is needed for early-warning. These benefits are linked to a better optimization of economic production, and can be estimated in Europe to serve as a basis for an estimate for developing countries. (ii) then it tries and assesses the cost of providing this information, and; (iii) concludes with a cost-benefit analysis of doing so.