The Human Cost Of Natural Disasters: A global perspective

This report helps frame the debate on disaster risk reduction in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. It also underlines that climate-related disasters have come to dominate the risk landscape to the point where they now account for more than 80% of all major internationally reported disasters. This report presents data about natural disasters impacts (human and economic) at world scale for the last 20 years. The analyses focus on trends and patterns of impacts and how these vary regarding the income level or the geographical location. Based on the analyses, conclusions and action points were drawn to raise the awareness and frame the debate for the next steps that need to be done in disaster risk reduction. The report is based on EM-DAT data from the period between 1994 and 2013, which includes 6,873 natural disasters worldwide, which claimed 1.35 million lives or almost 68,000 lives on average each year, and affected 218 million people on average per annum during this 20-year period.