Revealing Risk, Redefining Development: The 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction

This follows on from the 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate that was the first overview and analysis of disaster risks from the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). The 2009 report presented the evidence for how certain drivers increase disaster risks, including poorly managed urban and regional development, degraded ecosystems and poverty. It also highlighted how disaster losses often feed back into deteriorating health and education and deeper poverty. The 2011 report highlights the need for far more systematic recording of disaster losses and impacts and assessment of disaster risks. Case studies also show that making public investment less risk sensitive is generally less costly than the losses from disasters that were not avoided.

Chapter 1 introduces the report. Chapter 2 looks at where mortality risks from disasters have fallen and where they have increased. It presents maps of all the world’s regions showing mortality risk from weather-related hazards and highlights how this remains highly concentrated in countries with low per capita GDP and weak governance. Chapter 3 focuses on drought risks – which are less well understood than tropical cyclones and floods. Drought risk appears to be constructed over time by a range of drivers, including not only deficient or erratic rainfall but also poverty and rural vulnerability, increasing water demand from industry, urbanization and agribusiness, poor soil and water management, weak or ineffective governance and climate variability and change. Chapter 4 is on progress, measured against the Hyogo Framework for Action on disaster risk reduction. Chapter 5 is on investing today in a safer tomorrow and Chapter 6 is on opportunities and incentives for disaster risk reduction. Chapter 7 discusses reforming risk governance, while Chapter 8 draws out conclusions on redefining development. As with the 2009 volume, there are many maps, figures and case studies interspersed throughout the text. In this volume, the case studies presented in boxes include the impact of the August 2010 floods in Pakistan; child-centred approaches to dealing with climate stresses and extreme events; different types of drought; Mexico’s disaster contingency fund; the costs and benefits of school retrofitting; and the role of the media following the 2010 Haiti and Chile earthquakes.