Development of Human Vulnerability 2012–2017

Abstract

Vulnerability defined as the predisposition to be negatively affected, often decide whether hazards and extreme natural events can lead to disasters or severe suffering or not. The WorldRiskIndex (WRI) is an approach to assess exposure, vulnerability and risk patterns at the global scale and it is based on national scale resolution data. The new results of the WRI 2017 and the analysis of the development trends of vulnerability between 2012 to 2017 show that risk of natural hazards and climate change is particularly high in Oceania, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean as well as Central America. Also, the impacts of extreme weather events, such as Taifun Haiyan in 2013 that hit the Philippines and Vietnam revealed that vulnerable communities suffer most. The event caused more than 6,000 fatalities. However, also sea level rise as considered in the WRI can be seen as an extreme event even though it is a rather creeping process in many world regions. The analysis of the development of vulnerability, namely the examination of susceptibility, coping capacity and adaptive capacities between 2012 and 2017 reveals interesting differences. While at the global or international level, we can observe a reduction in vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change, there are significant differences at the regional scale. While the vulnerability in Asia is showing also a reduction in susceptibility and an increasing capacity to cope and to adapt, the world region Oceania shows a different trend. In Oceania, we found that some countries showed an increasing vulnerability and that the overall world region is characterized by a constant and even slightly increasing vulnerability level, in contrast to other world regions which mainly show significant improvements. Also, the high persistence of vulnerability in various countries in Africa — that show progress but often too little — suggests that it is likely that these countries might not be able to effectively reduce risks solely on their own. Adaptation policies and risk reduction strategies need to address these differential development trends of vulnerability at regional scale in order to provide a context for effective risk reduction at national and local levels. The results can also inform the Global Stock take for adaptation policies.