Natural Disasters: Lessons from the Past – Concerns for the Future

SummaryThe statistics of natural disasters with respect to number of deaths, economic losses and insured losses are each dominated by different types of events: earthquakes and storm surges represent the deadliest threat, floods and earthquakes exert the most severe economic strains on societies, and storms are responsible for the highest insurance losses. Disasters in mountain areas are usually much smaller as their consequences are felt only locally. The number of great natural disasters has increased by a factor of 3.2 from the 1960s to the 1990s. In the same period, the economic and insured losses they generated increased by factors of 8.6 and 16.1 respectively. The main causes for this development are: the increasing concentration of people and values in areas that are exposed to unfavourable natural conditions; the increasing vulnerability of structures and goods; the — often unjustified — trust in protection systems; and changes in environmental conditions including climate change. Despite all the efforts being made to prevent disasters by structural countermeasures, the risks in mountain areas are increasing due to the growing number of tourists and the unchanged practice of using hazardous mountain sites for residential and recreational purposes. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance (2000) 25, 570–581. doi:10.1111/1468-0440.00083