Preventive Resettlement of Populations at Risk of Disaster - GFDRR

words, 72.2 percent of the deaths were caused by 0.26
percent of the events recorded. During the same period,
the economic losses recorded totaled US$1.5 billion. The
25 mega-disasters for that period accounted for a mere
0.28 percent of the events, but accounted for 40 percent
of the losses, most of them occurring in developed
countries. Intensive risk is associated with this pattern
of mortality and economic losses, combining a high
degree of geographic concentration with a rather limited
number of events.
As opposed to intensive risk, where the most representative
impact variables are mortality and economic losses,
extensive risk exposes large areas to low-intensity but more
frequent losses, which are related to other types of impacts—such
as a large number of people affected (though
not necessarily killed) and damage to homes and local
infrastructure. For example, 99.3 percent of local losses
reported in the set of countries assessed by the Global
Assessment Report (UNISDR 2009a) accounted for 16
percent of the mortality but 51 percent of housing damage.
The Global Assessment Report points out that lowintensity
but very widespread losses are a major, albeit
little recognized, component of the effects and costs
of disasters, and that extensive manifestations of risk
are more typical of current risk patterns, which are
characterized by an upward trend in the exposure of
persons and assets at the local level (UNISDR 2009a).
Since these losses are associated with meteorological
phenomena, climate change is likely to exacerbate them.
In fact, 97 percent of reports of local losses are related to
climatic events and the figures for losses associated with
floods and heavy rainfall are increasing more than for
any other type of natural hazard.
1.4 A Changing Climate
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
has confirmed that changes are already occurring in the
geographical distribution, frequency, and intensity of
hydrometeorological hazards because of climate change
(Parry et al., 2007). The changes observed in the volume,
intensity, frequency, and type of precipitation are associated
with increases in the areas affected by drought, in
the numbers of heavy daily precipitation events that lead
to flooding, and in the intensity and duration of certain
kinds of tropical storms (UNISDR 2009a).
The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report states that tropical
cyclones are likely to intensify if the surface temperature
of the sea rises (Parry et al., 2007); and any increase in the
severity of cyclones will magnify the unevenness of the
disaster risk distribution. The Global Assessment Report
(UNISDR 2009a) provides a telling example: the economic
risk simulation model shows that 1.9 percent of the gross
domestic product (GDP) of Madagascar is at risk annually
from Category 3 cyclones, but only 0.09 percent of
the GDP of Japan. If these cyclones were to increase to
Category 4, 3.2 percent of the GDP of Madagascar would
be at risk, but only 0.16 percent of the GDP of Japan.
Based on the concentration and uneven distribution
of risk, it may be assumed that in a context of climate
change, the interactions between disaster risk and poverty
will intensify. This intensification occurs because the
frequency of hazards such as floods and tropical cyclones
increases and the resilience of the affected populations
decreases, due to low agricultural productivity, shortages
of water and energy, increases in disease vectors, among
other factors (see UNISDR 2009a).
2. Disaster Risk Patterns
and Trends in Latin America
and the Caribbean
In the past 40 years, the Latin American and Caribbean
Region (LAC) has experienced a series of major
disasters triggered by different types of natural hazards.
These included the earthquake in Ancash, Peru in 1970,
the earthquake that shook the capital of Mexico in 1985,
and the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in
Colombia that led to the Armero tragedy, among others.
In the 1990s, huge losses were associated with the
El Niño phenomenon, with the destruction left by Hurricane
Mitch as it tore through Central America and, at
the end of a decade filled with major disasters, the tragic
mudslides in Vargas, Venezuela in 1999. In the past 10
years, there have also been strong earthquakes in El Salvador
(2001) and Peru (2007) and one of the severest
hurricane seasons ever to hit the Caribbean, in 2005.
As the calamities of the past four decades continued, in
just the first two months of 2010 the region was hit by an
earthquake in Haiti, its poorest country, killing 230,000
people, and was followed by another strong earthquake
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Preventive Resettlement of Populations at Risk of Disaster: Experiences from Latin America