GLOBAL PRODUCTIVITY
CHAPTER 3
149
FIGURE 3.2 Episodes of natural disaster Climate disasters were the most frequent type of natural disaster in the full sample period. The annual frequency of climate-related episodes nearly doubled after 2000, and the frequency of biological and geophysical disaster episodes increased by 40 and 10 percent, respectively. Since 2000, the frequency of big and severe natural disasters has leveled off. After 2000, a natural disaster was 80 percent more likely to occur in an LIC and 35 percent more likely in an EMDE than in an advanced economy. Among EMDE regions, SSA experienced the steepest increase in the frequency of natural disasters after 2000 relative to 1980-99. A. Average number of natural disaster episodes per year, by type
B. Average number of natural disaster episodes per country per year
C. Average number of big natural disaster episodes per year, by type
D. Average number of severe natural disaster episodes per year, by type
E. Share of natural disasters, by region
F. Average number of natural disaster episodes per year, by region
Percent of total EAP 100
ECA
LAC
MNA
SAR
SSA
75 50 25 0 1962 1970 1978 1986 1994 2002 2010 2018 Sources: Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT); World Bank. Note: Natural disasters include climate, biological, and geophysical disasters (EM-DAT). An episode dummy for a specific type of event is 1 if the event occurs at least once (≥1) in a country-year pair and 0 otherwise. Big natural disasters and big wars are events that led to at least 10 deaths per million population. Severe natural disasters and severe wars are events that led to at least 100 deaths per million population. The sample includes 170 economies: 35 advanced economies and 135 EMDEs, of which 27 are LICs. AEs=advanced economies; EMDEs=emerging market and developing economies (including LICs); LICs = low-income countries; EAP = East Asia and Pacific; ECA = Europe and Central Asia; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MNA = Middle East and North Africa; SAR = South Asia; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa.
