Time’s bitter flood: trends in the number of reported natural disasters

Oxfam GB Research Report:

This report analyses the number of reported disasters in those regions where the majority of the world’s poor and vulnerable people live: sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. It presents analysis of the trends in the number of reported disasters, assesses what country-level factors influence the reported number of disasters, and compares the findings with independent published studies.

It reports an upwards trend in the number of reported disasters, asserting that this is chiefly driven by a steep rise in reported floods in all regions and, to a lesser extent, storms in Africa and the Americas.

It further asserts that countries with higher ‘bureaucratic quality’ (a measure of effective governance) seem to have a lower number of disasters reported, presumably because a responsible state with functioning services is willing and able to put in place measures such as Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) that can prevent a hazard becoming a disaster.