Economic and Financial Impacts of Natural Disasters: An Assessment of Their Effects and Options for Mitigation

Description

This project, which was completed in 2004, seeked to increase understanding of the wider economic impacts of natural disasters, factors determining the vulnerability of hazard-prone economies, opportunities for mitigation and factors inhibiting their adoption.

Through the detailed analysis of the impacts of natural disasters in three case-study countries, it addressed the currently limited understanding of the short and longer-term economic and financial implications of natural disasters.

The case studies focus on the disaggregated impacts of natural disasters on various sectors of each economy, including the public sector. They include an assessment of the factors determining the extent of hazard vulnerability of each economy and of whether and why that vulnerability has changed over time. They also consider the degree of attention paid to economic issues in disaster mitigation, preparedness, relief and rehabilitation programmes; how the economic consequences of disasters can be further mitigated; and the degree of attention currently attached to natural disasters and hazard risk in economic policy-making and planning.

Outputs & events