Floods affect 500 million people per year, will worsen with warming

Floods affect 500 million people per year, will worsen with warming

mongabay.com

August 10, 2007

Floods affect 500 million people a year and cause billions of dollars in damage, said U.N. officials Thursday.

Sálvano Briceño, director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, said that floods accounted for 84 per cent of all disaster deaths between 2000 and 2005 and caused $466 billion in losses over the decade 1992-2001, or 65 percent of the total of all disasters. U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator Margareta Wahlstrom added that the number of floods increased from 60 to 100 per year between 2004 and 2006.

“The problem today is that around the world vulnerability to disasters continues to increase, a situation that will worsen with climate change,” said Briceño. “So we need to take action now to reduce the risks of devastating impacts on people and their livelihoods. Disaster risk reduction is not an option, it is an urgent priority.”

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential for cutting future disaster risks. But an immediate task is also to prepare for more extreme weather conditions – through disaster risk reduction programmes that include strengthening public risk awareness, early warning systems and community-based disaster preparedness,” he added.

Flooding resulting from climate change is expected to affect more people in the future. The number affected will be largest in the large delta regions of Asia and Africa and in low-lying islands.

Briceño said that “modest investment” and simple measures could help cut losses from floods and other natural disasters. He pushed for the adoption and implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action, a plan devised after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The Hyogo Framework “calls for establishing laws and policies for flood and water management including zoning regulations to avoid building houses on low-lying areas and to protect forests and wetlands that absorb and purify water; building hospitals, schools, water and electricity facilities in safe places; and strengthening preparedness plans for when disaster strikes,” according to the UN.

Also Thursday, after a meeting in Bangkok, top environmental and health officials from Asian countries announced a UN-backed effort to “reduce the estimated 6.6 million deaths in the continent each year that are attributable to ecological factors such as air pollution, solid and hazardous wastes and numerous man-made disasters.”

“The region’s high death toll from environmental degradation can be avoided if we are determined to reverse the current trend,” said Shigeru Omi, Western Pacific Director of the UN World Health Organization (WHO), which jointly organized the First Ministerial Regional Forum on Environment and Health in Bangkok together with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Solving environmental health problems requires collaboration between health and environmental sectors. We need to strengthen our collective commitment to priority environmental health challenges in the region,” he added.

According to the UN, the Bangkok Declaration provides a mechanism to share information, improve policy and regulatory frameworks at the national and regional level, and promote the implementation of integrated environmental health strategies and regulations.