2006-2015 Climate-related events in the five continents: who leads?

The last month of 2016 was dedicated to highlighting key occurrences in the five continents: Asia, the Americas, Europe, Oceania and Africa . There was a deliberate attempt to only focus on 5 key disaster - drought, flood, storm, extreme temperatures and wildfire in order to allow for inter-comparisons within and between continents. On why the focus is on decadal and not longer term periods like 100 years and over: perhaps it is safe to say that the main aim of the blog was to highlight variations in environmental changes and accompanying impacts on human systems at the global level, based on available and reliable data from EM Database.

Comparisons

In the period 2006-2015, floods were the most frequent in all the continents apart from the Oceania that more prone to storms. Although extreme temperatures are frequent in Europe, they seem to have a very low frequency in Africa, Americas and the Oceania. Due to the nature of these hazards, rapid and slow onset, the frequency at which they appear is different. 

	Very high frequent	High frequency	Moderate Frequency	Low frequency	Very low frequency
Africa	Flood	Storm	Drought	Wildfire	Extreme temperature
Americas	Flood	Storm	Drought	Wildfire	Extreme temperature
Asia	Flood	Storm	Extreme temperature	Drought	Wildfire
Europe	Flood	Extreme temperature	Storm	Wildfire	Drought
Oceania	Storm	Flood	Wildfire	Drought	Extreme temperature

Frequency of  extreme climate events from 2006-2015 in the world's five continents 

(Source: EM-DAT Database, Accessed 3 January 2017)

Due to the nature and frequency of disasters occurring in different continents, the level of risk, impact and damage varies. Consequently, the number of fatalities and economic damages vary as shown in the figure below - highest number of fatalities in Asia (221,224) and lowest in the Oceania (1,165). Interestingly, the later has the highest cost of damage (890,759,581), perhaps due to the fact that most settlements in the Oceania are developed along the coastlines which are the most at risk from storms and floods (rapid onset disasters occurring frequently in the region). 

Number of deaths and economic costs of damages resulting from extreme climate events between 2006-2015 (Source: EM-DAT Database, Accessed 3 January 2017)

What next?

In the next and last post for the blog, I attempt to highlight some of the interventions and responses that are being implemented/or should be implementation to enhance adaptation to climate-related disasters, build resilience, and promote environmental sustainability. See you there... :)

Natural Disasters in Europe: A summary

From Asia 's hotpot to the journey through the Americas, this week's focus is on Europe! Kreibich et al 2014  argue that because of the changing climate, Europe will be faced with more impacts from natural disasters in the coming years.

“Climate change is one of the largest threats to human and ecosystem health (in Europe), reducing the supply of food and nutrition, causing premature deaths from extreme weather events and affecting vital ecosystems” UNEP, 2016.

  

Overview

Disaster type	Occurrence	Total deaths	Homeless	Total affected	Total damage
Drought	7	0	0	216194	6051573
Extreme temperature	141	67819	0	621557	1932601
Flood	232	1069	53138	4066755	50978320
Storm	137	380	2963	986477	41061400
Wildfire	25	241	5692	1020865	8173274

Data Source: EM-DAT Database (Accessed 21 December 2016)

The main disasters in Europe are drought, extreme temperatures (heat waves), flood, storms and wildfire. Based on the data from the EM DAT database, the frequency of these hazards within the past decade shows variations in length and magnitude- floods are a common phenomena followed by extreme temperatures and storms respectively. As shown in the table, most deaths have resulted from heatwaves and floods. However, significant damages result from floods and storms with the largest number of people being affected from the former. The same scenario is observed in Asia and the Americas which are more impacted by floods and storms.

Frequency of disasters in Europe from 2005-2015
Data Source: EM-DAT Database (Accessed 21 December 2016)

Floods and heat waves

Rojas et al. 2012 assessed the impacts of river floods in Europe, based on both the adaptation and non-adaptation trajectories, and found a projected increase in the number of affected population. The study also projected that, if adaptation measures are not put in place, the number of damages resulting from river floods will reach €98 billion per year by 2080. Conversely, the damages will be lower in the phase of adaptation to as much as €53 billion per year by the same period. However, Rojas and colleagues note that there are wider variations at country level with countries like the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Romania and the United Kingdom set to incur high damages. Variations are also evident at country level with some parts of a given country being more at risk to river floods than the rest of the country. A study by Alfieri et al. 2015 affirms that the frequency and magnitude of the floods in Europe will increase with “flood peaks with return periods above 100 years are projected to double in frequency within 3 decades”. Other studies have also assessed the impact of sea level rise in Europe and the resulting impact due to coastal flooding.

The 2015 summer in Europe was marred with extreme temperatures, with the highest temperature in Berlin reaching 37.9°C, London at 36.7°C, and Paris at 39.7°C. The surface area temperature anomaly over central Europe for the period was 2.40°C above the 1964–1993 mean. This level of warming closely matched with the 2003 summer heat wave that lead to massive loss of lives. In assessing the chances of extreme temperatures since the 2003 European heat wave, Christidis et al. 2015 found that the occurrence of heat wave events is now twice a decade as compared to the early 2000s where heat waves occurred once a decade.

Focus on the top 5...

Occurrence of natural disasters in European countries between 2005-2015
Data Source: EM-DAT Database (Accessed 21 December 2016)

Number of people affected by the natural disasters between 2005-2015
Data Source: EM-DAT Database (Accessed 21 December 2016)

Death resulting from natural disasters, 2005-2015
Data Source: EM-DAT Database (Accessed 21 December 2016)

Cost of damages resulting from natural disasters, 2005-2015
Data Source: EM-DAT Database (Accessed 21 December 2016)