The Disaster Riskscape Across East and North-East Asia
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The Disaster Riskscape across East and North-East Asia Key Takeaways for Stakeholders Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019 Pathways for resilience, inclusion and empowerment All rights reserved Printed in Bangkok ST/ESCAP/2882 About the report The Disaster Riskscape Across Asia-Pacific: Pathways for Resilience, Inclusion and Empowerment. Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019 (APDR 2019) captured a comprehensive picture of the complexity of disaster risk landscape (‘riskscape’) in the Asia-Pacific region. The full-length publication is available at https://www.unescap.org/ publications/asia-pacific-disaster-report-2019. Following the release of the APDR at the sixth session of the ESCAP inter-governmental Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction in August 2019, the report was customized for each of the five ESCAP sub-regions, namely East and North-East Asia, North and Central Asia, South-East Asia, South and South-West Asia and the Pacific. This sub-regional report presents the key findings for East and North-East Asia. Acknowledgements The Asia-Pacific Disaster Report (APDR) is a biennial flagship publication of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Its 2019 issue was prepared under the leadership and guidance of Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP. Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary and Tiziana Bonapace, Director, ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division (IDD) provided direction and advice. Sanjay Srivastava, Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, IDD led the core drafting team. The Disaster Riskscape across East and North-East Asia: Key Takeaways for Stakeholders is a joint publication of the United Nations ESCAP ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division and the ESCAP Sub-regional Office of East and North-East Asia. The report is compiled and synthesized by a team consisted of Maria Bernadet K. Dewi, Shreya Mukhopadhyay, Jiwon Seo, Karanveer Singh, Sung Eun Kim, Nobuko Kajiura, Kareff Rafisura, Madhurima Sarkar-Swaisgood, Laura Hendy, with the technical guidance of Sanjay Srivastava, Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction Section and overall guidance of Tiziana Bonapace, Director, ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction and Ganbold Baasanjav, Head of ESCAP Sub-regional Office for East and North-East Asia. Anoushka Ali served as the editor. Daniel Feary provided the design and graphic services. Armita Behboodi coordinated the editing, lay-out and printing. Chonlathon Piemwongjit and Narada Kalra provided administrative assistance during the production stage. An earlier draft of this publication served as a background document for the North-East Asian Multistakeholder Forum on Sustainable Development Goals,which was held in Vladivostok, Russian Federation, from 15 to 16 October 2019. Invaluable feedback from the participants was incorporated when finalizing this publication. The report has been issued without formal editing. Photo credits Cover: Sung Eun Kim Page 6: Luong Thanh Hai Page 17: beibaoke/Shutterstock.com Page 21: UN Photo/Evan Schneider Page 23: Joseph Sohm/Shutterstock.com Disclaimer The designations employed and the presentation of materials on the maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Recommended Citation United Nations, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) (2020). The Disaster Riskscape across East and North-East Asia: Key Takeaways for Stakeholders. ST/ESCAP/2882. The riskscape for East and North-East Asia accounts for more than 60 per cent of the region’s total of $675 billion in annualized economic losses. For the first time, annualized economic losses are presented, which include both losses due to intensive risk and those due to extensive risk, indirect losses and slow-onset disasters. Incorporating these additional sources of risk means that the Average Annual Losses (AAL) are exponentially higher than previous estimates, reaching $409 billion and accounting for 60 per cent of the region’s total AAL (Figure 1). Mongolia remains the most affected by slow-onset drought followed by China and the Russian Federation, while typhoons and floods are the highest cause of AAL in Japan and in the Republic of Korea. Japan also has the highest AAL for earthquakes and tsunamis due to its geographical location in the Ring of Fire (Figure 2). FIGURE 1 East and North-East Asia disaster riskscape (average annual losses) US$409 billion (100%) Tsunami Floods Typhoon Earthquake Drought 1% 10% 16% 17% 55% Source: ESCAP, based on probabilistic risk assessment. Note 1: Volumetric analysis is a measurement by volume (impacted population, geographical area and economic losses). Note 2: Drought average annual losses data of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not available. 1 THE DISASTER RISKSCAPE ACROSS EAST AND NORTH-EAST ASIA FIGURE 2 Riskscape of selected East and North-East Asian countries MONGOLIA US$ 412.2 million (100%) Earthquake Floods Drought 1.7% 13.6% 84.7% CHINA US$ 245.0 billion (100%) Tsuanami Typhoon Earthquake Floods Drought 0.1% 4.5% 5% 10% 80% JAPAN US$ 118.2 billion (100%) Floods Tsuanmi Drought Typhoon Earthquake 4% 5% 8% 34% 49% REPUBLIC OF KOREA US$ 24.3 billion (100%) Earthquake, Floods Drought Typhoon tsunami 15% 26% 58% <0.5% RUSSIAN FEDERATION US$ 20.4 billion (100%) Typhoon, Earthquake Floods Drought tsunami 3% 37% 60% 0.5% Source: ESCAP, based on probabilistic risk assessment. Note: Volumetric analysis is a measurement by volume (impacted population, geographical area and economic losses. 2 KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR STAKEHOLDERS East and North-East Asia has the highest AAL for both intensive and extensive disasters. The disaster riskscape for East and North-East Asia can be better understood in terms of intensive and extensive risk. Intensive risk FIGURE 3 Multi-hazard AAL - extensive risk - including indirect Intensive disaster risk refers to high-severity, mid- losses in the Asia-Pacific region to low-frequency disasters, such as earthquakes, typhoons, riverine floods and tsunamis. For the East 100 and North-East Asian subregion, the multi-hazard AAL for intensive disasters is $101 billion, which represents 68 per cent of the Asia-Pacific region’s multi-hazard riskscape. The highest AAL in the Asia-Pacific region 80 is concentrated in higher-income countries, notably Japan with a 40 per cent share in the region’s AAL, and China with an 18 per cent share (Figure 3). 60 Earthquakes – The costliest events are generally earthquakes, that occur particularly in developed areas, with 64 per cent of the region’s total earthquake 40 AAL in Japan, and 14 per cent in China. Floods – China represents 28 per cent of the total flood AAL in the Asia-Pacific region. Other countries with a 20 significant proportion of the region’s flood AAL include Japan and the Republic of Korea. Typhoons – Japan represents 47 per cent of the total DOLLARS US OF BILLIONS 0 typhoon AAL in the region, followed by the Republic Tsunami Floods Typhoon Earthquake of Korea at 16 per cent. Japan China Republic of Korea Russian Federation Rest of Asia-Pacic region Tsunamis – Japan represents 91 per cent of the total tsunami AAL in the region. Source: ESCAP based on probabilistic risk assessment. Extensive risk Extensive risk refers to low-severity but high-frequency hazardous events. These risks are generally highly localized and cannot be modelled analytically at the global or regional scale. However, evidence from countries where extensive risk has been modelled empirically suggests that such risk could increase the total multi-hazard AAL between 10 per cent and 50 per cent. A methodology developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean indicates that direct losses normally represent only 30 per cent to 40 per cent of total losses. Applying this assumption to the East and North-East Asian subregion, the total average annual loss, including indirect losses, would rise to $184 billion, which represents 0.95 per cent of the subregion’s gross domestic product (GDP). For the East and North-East Asian subregion, the agricultural drought AAL is $225 billion, which is about 1.16 per cent of the subregion’s GDP. Incorporating this into the subregion’s total multi-hazard AAL increases this figure to $409 billion, which represents 2.11 per cent of its GDP (Table 1). TABLE 1 Disaster risk in East and North-East Asia PROPORTION OF SUBREGIONAL SOURCES OF RISK AAL (US$ BILLION) GDP (PERCENTAGE) Intensive risk - multi-hazard AAL 101 0.52 Extensive risk - multi-hazard AAL 131 0.68 Extensive risk - multi-hazard AAL including indirect losses 184 0.95 Agricultural drought AAL 225 1.16 Total - including intensive, extensive, direct and indirect losses, and agricultural drought 409 2.11 Source: ESCAP, based on probabilistic risk assessment and ESCAP (2019). 3 THE DISASTER RISKSCAPE ACROSS EAST AND NORTH-EAST ASIA Slow-onset disaster: Drought Drought is a widespread, slow-onset, creeping disaster, yet there are no probabilistic drought hazard estimates for Asia and the Pacific. Other measures are therefore used as proxies, such as those related to agriculture, the sector in which drought has the greatest impact. The countries most exposed are those that depend on agriculture for a high proportion of their GDP. Also, countries, such as Mongolia and China, with a high drought