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Building disaster‐resilient communities: The road to the second World Conference on Disaster Reduction, January 2005, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
Author(s) -
Briceño Sálvano
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
natural resources forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.646
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1477-8947
pISSN - 0165-0203
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-8947.2004.00093.x
Subject(s) - natural disaster , natural hazard , disaster risk reduction , threatened species , international community , climate change , global warming , geography , natural (archaeology) , political science , environmental planning , economic growth , development economics , meteorology , economics , oceanography , politics , ecology , habitat , law , biology , archaeology , geology
Abstract The statistics paint a shocking picture: Over the past ten years around 7,000 ‘natural’ disasters have occurred, killing more than 300,000 people and resulting in over US$800 billion in economic losses (Munich Re, 2003). Increasing interest in global warming has provoked intense debate on the issue of climate change and its implications for more frequent and intense extreme weather events, placing more people at risk than ever. While all countries may be threatened by natural hazards, experience shows that developing countries are disproportionately affected, with losses sometimes exceeding years of hard‐won and desperately needed economic development. The World Conference on Disaster Reduction,1 to be held in Japan in 2005, aims to address these and other crucial issues that are posing an unprecedented challenge to the international community.