Promoting Sustainable Development Through Disaster Risk Management

Despite considerable advances in disaster risk management (DRM) understanding and know-how over the past few decades, there has been no evidence of a long-term decline in loss of human life in Asia and the Pacific (ADB 2013). Moreover, direct physical losses have increased more rapidly than regional gross domestic product. Rising losses have reflected increasing exposure of people, property, and other assets to natural hazards as expanding numbers of people, homes and infrastructure are positioned in hazard-prone areas without due action to ensure they are sufficiently disaster resilient. Disaster losses are expected to continue following an upward trend over the next few decades as demographic and economic expansion continues in hazard-prone areas with little regard for disaster risk. The predicted increase in the intensity and, in some areas, frequency of extreme climate events as a consequence of climate change, as detailed in latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports is expected to fuel this trend. Even with renewed action immediately to reduce disaster risk, higher disaster losses can be anticipated reflecting the considerable level of disaster risk accumulated over recent years.