Asia takes the brunt of disasters

World Disaster Report The report divides disasters into natural and non-natural disasters. Natural disasters include hydro-meteorological disasters avalanches/landslides; droughts/famines; extreme temperatures; floods; forest/scrub fires; windstorms; and other (insect infestation and waves/surges) and geophysical disasters (earthquakes; volcanic eruptions). Non-natural disasters can be industrial (chemical spill, collapse of industrial structures, explosion, fire, gas leak, poisoning, radiation), miscellaneous (collapse of domestic/non-industrial structures, explosion, fire) or transport (air, rail, road and water-borne accidents).

Cheap Lives. Expensive Lives
While countries with Low Human Development Index record the highest deaths per disaster (1052), disasters in countries with High Human Development Index record the highest cost per disaster. ($636 million) This also has to do with insurance companies, who push the values of damages higher in High HDI countries.

Fragile Existence

People living on fragile lands are vulnerable but have a modest portfolio of assets that can help bring them out of poverty: the land (albeit with constraints), traditional social capital, human capital, and indigenous knowledge and know-how. However, the potential productivity of even these assets has not been fully developed by either local or national institutions. Living in dispersed settlements and working in the informal or subsistence economy, people on the rural periphery are largely invisible to decision-makers.

One-quarter of the people in developing countries-1.3 billion in all-survive on fragile lands, areas that present significant constraints for intensive agriculture and where the people's links to the land are critical for the sustainability of communities, pastures, forests and other natural resources.

Half a billion people in developing countries live in arid regions with no access to irrigation systems. Another 400 million are on land with soils unsuitable for agriculture, 200 million in slope-dominated regions, and more than 130 million in fragile forest ecosystems. These areas (table 4.1), covering an estimated 73 percent of the Earth's land surface, face significant problems for agriculture investment and have limited ability to sustain growing populations. (Improving Livelihoods on Fragile Lands)