Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005

A Normative Exploration of the Link Between Development, Economic Growth, and Natural Risk

“…Increased investments in disaster risk reduction have lead to a significant reduction in human casualties (Kahn 2005;Kellenberg and Mobarak 2008), but economic losses from natural disasters have been growing as fast or even faster than economic growth in many countries, see for instance Barredo (2009), Miller et al (2008, Neumayer and Barthel (2010), Nordhaus (2010), Pielke et al (2008), and Bouwer et al (2007). This evolution can be explained by population and economic growth (richer countries have more assets that can be lost or damaged), and is magnified by an increasing exposure to risk, even in relative terms (an increasing share of assets is located in at-risk areas) (Schmidt et al 2009;Neumayer and Barthel 2010;Bouwer 2011;Jongman et al 2012;IPCC 2012 hurricane-prone areas can explain why hurricane losses are increasing more rapidly than GDP in the US (Pielke et al 2008).…”

“…This evolution can be explained by population and economic growth (richer countries have more assets that can be lost or damaged), and is magnified by an increasing exposure to risk, even in relative terms (an increasing share of assets is located in at-risk areas) (Schmidt et al 2009;Neumayer and Barthel 2010;Bouwer 2011;Jongman et al 2012;IPCC 2012 hurricane-prone areas can explain why hurricane losses are increasing more rapidly than GDP in the US (Pielke et al 2008). Globally, there is a trend toward higher exposure to risk: between 1970 and 2010, global population grew by 87%, but the population living in flood plains increased by 114% and in cyclone-prone coastlines by 192%.…”

Modelling risk hurricane elements in potentially affected areas by a GIS system

“…Taramelli et al is well known that hurricane hazards are controlled by or dependent on a large and complex set of natural and human induced environmental factors (Howard et al 2003, Shen et al 2005, Pielke et al 2008. To complicate matters further, hurricane related components such as storm surges, floods and high winds, require forecasting appraisal that is often founded upon different methods, techniques and tools (Jiang et al 2003, Bao et al 2006.…”

Detection and Attribution of Observed Impacts

“…Studies on insured losses that in general meet higher data quality standards than data on overall losses due to thoroughly monitored payouts have focused on developed countries including Australia, Germany, Spain, the USA (Changnon, 2007(Changnon, , 2008(Changnon, , 2009aBarredo et al, 2012;Barthel and Neumayer, 2012;Sander et al, 2013; see also Section 10.7.3). Studies of normalized losses from extreme winds associated with hurricanes in the USA (Miller et al, 2008;Pielke Jr. et al, 2008;Schmidt et al, 2010;Bouwer and Botzen, 2011) and the Caribbean (Pielke Jr. et al, 2003), tornadoes in the USA (Brooks and Doswell, 2002;Boruff et al, 2003;Simmons et al, 2013), and wind storms in Europe (Barredo, 2010) have failed to detect trends consistent with anthropogenic climate change, although some studies were able to find signals in loss records related to climate variability, such as damage and loss of life due to wildfires in Australia related to ENSO and Indian Ocean dipole phenomena (Crompton et al, 2010), or typhoon loss variability in the western North Pacific (Welker and Faust, 2013). Effects of adaptation measures (disaster risk prevention) on disaster loss changes over time cannot be excluded as research is currently not able to control for this factor (Neumayer and Barthel, 2011).…”

“…• More population, settlement, and wealth in coastal areas (Pielke Jr. et al, 2008;Schmidt et al, 2010) • Strengthening of building codes (IntraRisk, 2002) Mozambique, early 2007…”