The economics of disaster risks and impacts in the Pacific

Abstract

PurposeThe Pacific islands face the highest disaster risk globally in per capita terms. Countries in the region have been affected by several recent catastrophic events, as well as by frequent natural hazards of smaller magnitude. The purpose of this paper is to quantify total disaster risk faced by Pacific island countries (PICs).Design/methodology/approachThe paper evaluates the three main sources of data for quantifying risk in the region—the International Emergency Database (EMDAT), DesInventar and the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative, evaluating the information available on indirect disaster impacts and their likely impacts on poverty and well-being.FindingsThe analysis suggests that the three available data sets contain inconsistencies and underestimate disaster risk, especially for atoll nations. It also identifies four trends with respect to changes in natural hazards that result from climate change and are likely to have the greatest long-term impact on Pacific islands. Focusing on Tuvalu, the paper also quantifies the likely consequence of some of the possible interventions that aim to reduce those impacts.Practical implicationsThe paper’s main conclusion is that improving the systematic collection of quantitative data on disaster events should be a basic first step in improving future policy decisions concerning resource allocation and efforts to insure losses from future disasters and climate change.Originality/valueWhile a lot of research explored disaster risk in PICs, comparative analysis of quantitative information on disasters across the diverse countries of the region is limited.