Natural Disaster Trends

Data fields

• Disaster_Group: EM-DAT stores different types of disasters: natural, technological and complex. The dataset has been filtered to contain only natural disasters so this column is "Natural" for all rows but kept for compatibility reasons.

• Disaster_Subgroup: Every natural disaster is assigned to one of the following six subgroups: Biological, Geophysical, Climatological, Hydrological, Meteorological and Extra-terrestrial to describe the type of natural disaster. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• Disaster_type: For every natural disaster event one main disaster type is identified. If two or more disasters are related because they are consequences of each other, then this information is encoded in the attributes Associated_Dis and Associated_Dis2. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• Disaster Sub-Type: Subdivision related to the attribute Disaster_type so that a the disaster type Storm can be further classified as tropical, extra-tropical or convective storm.

• Disaster Sub-Sub Type: Any appropriate sub-division of the disaster sub-type (not applicable for all disaster sub-types). Types of natural disasters could be further broken down using two more categories which would be available in the database. For example, the Disaster type Storm could be further subdivided into Tropical storm, Extra-tropical storm or Convective storm. Even a further subdivision of the category Convective storm would be possible. Since the analysis is aimed at detecting trends on a high level, the classification of each event based on the attributes Disaster_Subgroup and Disaster _Type was considered sufficient and the further subdivisions into Disaster sub-type and Disaster Subsubtype is only intended to be considered for detailed analysis. The full table is shown in the Appendix.

• Associated_Dis: Secondary event triggered by a natural disaster (i.e. Landslide for a flood, explosion after an earthquake, ...)

• Associated_Dis2: Another secondary event triggered by a natural disaster. (i.e. Landslide for a flood, explosion after an earthquake, ...)

  Example: If a tsunami is triggered by an earthquake, then the attribute Disaster_Type would be Earthquake, the attribute Disaster_Subtype would be Ground movement and the attribute Associated_Dis would be Tsunami/Tidal wave.

• Country: The country in which the disaster has occurred or had an impact. If a disaster has affected more than one country, a seperate entry is created in the database for each country affected. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• ISO: Unique 3-letter code for each country defined by ISO 3166. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• Region: The region to which the country belongs, based on the UN regional division. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• Continent: The continent to which the country belongs. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• Start_Year: The year when the disaster occurred. No missing values are present for this attribute.

• End Year: The year when the disaster ended. No missing values are present for this attribute. For sudden-impact disasters also the month and the day are well defined and available. For disaster situations developing gradually over a longer time period (i.e. drought) with no specific start date the day attribute is empty. For our questions the exact date plays a subordinate role and therefore the year of the beginning of the disaster is completely sufficient for our analysis.

• Total_Deaths: Number of people who lost their life because the event happened plus the number of people whose whereabouts since the disaster are unknown, and presumed dead based on official figures. Missing values present for approx. 25% of all events.

• No_Affected: Number of people which requiring immediate assistance during an emergency situation. The indicator affected is often reported and is widely used by different actors to convey the extent, impact, or severity of a disaster in non-spatial terms. In case that no values for the attribute Total_Deaths are available this attribute could be used as a proxy.

Appendix

Sourced from https://public.emdat.be/about.