Dr. John Espie Leake
What this Book is About There is a commonly held view that the incidence and scale of disasters is increasing in the modern world although some disagreement on whether the incidence of events, such as Tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods etc., that can give rise to disasters is increasing. The view is understandable, both population and their built environment are increasing so more is at risk and this trend of increased risk will continue while populations continue to rise. As the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) enumerates this: ‘Natural disasters are becoming more costly: in constant dollars, disaster costs between 1990 and 1999 were more than 15 times higher ($652 billion in material losses) than they were between 1950 and 1959 ($38 billion at 1998 values) The human cost is also high: over the 1984–2003 period, more than 4.1 billion people were affected by natural disasters. The number affected has grown, from 1.6 billion in the first half of that period (1984–93) to almost 2.6 billion in the second half (1994-2003), and has continued to increase. Although disasters caused by natural events occur throughout the world, losses to disaster in developing countries are generally much greater than in developed countries in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) or government revenues.’ Disasters are commonly considered to be sudden events, as with modern communications it is possible for billions of people to experience almost simultaneous sympathy and desire to help. This suddenness facilitates collective action, at least while the collective emotion persists, but may mask other more important impacts on the lives of all concerned. Many of the most disastrous events in history however have had slow onset periods, for example; • salinised irrigation systems that helped bring down civilisations such as the Sumerian states on the Euphrates river some 4,000 years ago, • deforestation leading to desertification and or massive erosion is a particu
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