NewsFlash 1
Decrease in the frequency of natural disasters since the beginning of the century
The new year began with a first, as far as we know, in the English-speaking world.
The publication by Roger Pielke Jr¹ of a graph² using figures from EM-DAT³, the CRED database⁴, accompanied by a short commentary summarising the conclusions of our own articles :
« Today’s graph is based on data kept by EM-DAT in Belgium, which is widely viewed as an authoritative source for data on global disasters. The data show that from 2000 to 2021, the number of global weather and climate disasters declined by about 10%, which is very good news and completely contrary to conventional wisdom. The period since 2000 is viewed as the most reliable for data reliability, but it is safe to say that even since 2000, coverage has improved. So the 10% decline is possibly an underestimate⁵ ».
In summary :
- the frequency of natural disasters has decreased since the beginning of the century ;
- only data from this period are sufficiently representative⁶ to allow such comparisons to be made.
Sources :
[1] Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, USA.
[2] N.B. : the graph does not take into account geophysical and biological disasters.
[4] Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters : https://www.cred.be/
[5] https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/global-weather-and-climate-disasters
[6] As we have shown in detail in our article on the UNDRR report : https://ludwik-budyn.medium.com/fake-news-%C3%A0-lonu-c855607a9bee
