Abstract
International frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015−2030 require the quantification of country-based flood risk. However, few approaches at the global scale include the three necessary components (hazard, exposure, and vulnerability) for determining disaster risk and are country-based assessments, owing to major challenges such as limited data availability and vulnerability proxy selection. Therefore, in this study, a method was developed with the following features: Incorporating the hazard, exposure, and vulnerability components; Applicable to the vast majority of countries in the world; Visualizing priority countries and illustrating effective measures and strategies; Clear and easy to understand by leaders and decision makers of international organizations, governments, and other stakeholders; Identifying each country’s challenges and providing guidance on specific issues for more detailed investigation and policy creation; Including more extensive factors compared with past studies. In Asia and the Pacific, the Flood Risk Index computed by the developed method is compared with the fatality ratio, and the results show that improving flood resilience secures people and society regardless of the magnitude and frequency of floods. Analysis at the global scale visualizes regional tendencies and indicates that countries closer to the equator have higher flood risk. Analysis of country-based flood risk based on five indicators demonstrates that the developed method can assist international organizations, governments, and other stakeholders to further examine country-specific conditions and establish and implement policies and strategies toward building a resilient society and achieving international targets.
Highlights
Target 11.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is ‘‘by 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations’’ (United Nations 2015, p. 22), which highlights the importance of water-related disasters
Using the developed method described in the previous section, this study computes and analyzes the flood risks of countries in Asia and the Pacific, which is the most heavily populated part of the world
Some countries/regions are not included, the 33 that are analyzed include most of the large countries that account for most of the population, land area, and economic activity of Asia and the Pacific, and so this study is more comprehensive than earlier studies
Summary
Target 11.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is ‘‘by 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations’’ (United Nations 2015, p. 22), which highlights the importance of water-related disasters. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (SFDRR) sets ‘‘understanding disaster risk’’ as its first priority for action (UNISDR 2015). The previous global framework, the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 adopted in 2005, recommended the development of ‘‘systems of indicators of disaster risk and vulnerability at national and subnational scales that will enable decision-makers to assess the impact of disasters’’ as a key activity Flood risk assessment at the global scale is needed for international financing institutes to develop risk profiles and decide which risk reduction schemes to invest in (UNISDR 2007). Development of a Method for Assessing Country-Based Flood Risk at the Global Scale
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