The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters Assessing the Costs of Prevention, Mitigation and Adaptation

About this book

Research on the economics of natural disasters has not kept up with the tremendous impacts of these phenomena on people's lives. However, large scale events such as Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami in Asia and the more recent 2008 hurricane in Myanmar and earthquake in Sichuan, China, have sparked new interest in the field.

This book brings together the work of academic researchers and practitioners covering methodological aspects of measuring natural disasters as well as relevant macro and microeconomic theory and evidence, trying to put forward a research agenda and policy options for the next decade. The book has two parts. Part I first provides an overview of the general trends in natural disasters and their effects, and later focuses on a critical analysis of different methodologies to assess the economic impact of natural disasters, as well as on the ex-ante and ex-post mechanisms to deal with the effects of disasters and the relationship between extreme natural events and climate change. Part II covers six case studies from both the developed and the developing world, and from three different continents: Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Nicaragua, Japan and the Netherlands. Using both country-level data and household surveys, these case studies analyze and quantify the impact of natural hazards, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, among other types of disasters, on household welfare and macroeconomic performance.

This is an indispensible volume for researchers, academics and policy professionals addressing the short and long term economic effects of natural disasters.

Contents

Foreword

1. Introduction

Part I: Theoretical and General Issues
2. The Frequency and Impact of Natural Disasters
3. The Inter-Linkages Between Natural Disasters and Economic Development
4. Valuing Impacts of Natural Disasters and the Economic Benefits of Preventing Them - Methods and Applications
5. Cost Benefit Analysis of Disaster Risk Management and Climate Adaptation: The Case of Bangladesh
6. Challenges Ahead: Risk Management And Cost-Benefit Analysis In A Changing Climate
7. Natural Disasters and the Insurance Industry
8. Natural Disaster Mititgation Policies

Part II: Case Studies
9. Natural Disasters in Vietnam: A Synthesis from a Socio-economic Perspective
10. Natural Disasters Mitigation in West Bengal
11. How do Households Manage The Effects of Natural Disasters? The Role of Interhousehold Transfers in Nicaragua
12. The Economic Impact of Earthquakes on Households: Evidence from Japan
13. Urban and Non-Agricultural Impacts of Flooding and their Assessments: The Case of Bangladesh
14. The Economics of Flood Disaster Management in the Netherlands
15. Conclusions
Technical Annex: EM-DAT Database: Characteristics, Definitions and Typology of a Global Disaster Impact Data Set

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Biography

Debarati Guha-Sapir is Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and Professor at University of Louvain School of Public Health, in Brussels Belgium.
Indhira Santos is a Research Fellow at Bruegel, a think tank in international economics in Brussels, Belgium. She is also a consultant for UNDP and the World Bank on the economics of natural disasters.