Does development reduce fatalities from natural disasters? New evidence for floods

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 649-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Ferreira ◽  
Kirk Hamilton ◽  
Jeffrey R. Vincent
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Flood Magnitude ◽  
Lower Income Countries ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Large Floods

AbstractWe analyze the impact of development on flood fatalities using a new data set of 2,171 large floods in 92 countries between 1985 and 2008. Our results challenge the conventional wisdom that development results in fewer fatalities during natural disasters. Results indicating that higher income and better governance reduce fatalities during flood events do not hold up when unobserved country heterogeneity and within-country correlation of standard errors are taken into account. We find that income does have a significant, indirect effect on flood fatalities by affecting flood frequency and flood magnitude, but this effect is nonmonotonic, with net reductions in fatalities occurring only in lower income countries. We find little evidence that improved governance affects flood fatalities either directly or indirectly.

scholarly journals Do Long-Term Natural Disasters Influence Social Trust? Empirical Evidence from China

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (14) ◽  
pp. 7280
Author(s):  
Yao Li ◽  
Haoyang Li ◽  
Jianqing Ruan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
The North ◽  
The Impact

The natural environment is one of the most critical factors that profoundly influences human races. Natural disasters may have enormous effects on individual psychological characteristics. Using China’s long-term historical natural disaster dataset from 1470 to 2000 and data from a household survey in 2012, we explore whether long-term natural disasters affect social trust. We find that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between long-term natural disaster frequency and social trust. We further examine the impact of long-term natural disaster frequency on social trust in specific groups of people. Social trust in neighbors and doctors is stronger where long-term natural disasters are more frequent. Our results are robust after we considering the geographical difference. The effect of long-term natural disasters remains positively significant after we divide the samples based on geographical location. Interestingly, the impact of long-term flood frequency is only significant in the South and the impact of long-term drought frequency is only significant in the North.

Floods and armed conflict

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Ghimire ◽  
Susana Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Large Floods ◽  
Global Data

AbstractWe estimate the impact of large, catastrophic floods on internal armed conflict using global data on large floods between 1985 and 2009. The results suggest that while large floods did not ignite new conflict, they fueled existing armed conflicts. Floods and armed conflict are endogenously determined, and we show that empirically addressing this endogeneity is important. The estimated effects of floods on conflict prevalence are substantially larger in specifications that control for the endogeneity of floods, suggesting that treating natural disasters as exogenous phenomena may underestimate their impacts on sociopolitical outcomes.

scholarly journals Cahokia’s emergence and decline coincided with shifts of flood frequency on the Mississippi River

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (20) ◽  
pp. 6319-6324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel E. Munoz ◽  
Kristine E. Gruley ◽  
Ashtin Massie ◽  
David A. Fike ◽  
Sissel Schroeder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
High Magnitude ◽  
Agricultural Societies ◽  
Large Floods

Here we establish the timing of major flood events of the central Mississippi River over the last 1,800 y, using floodwater sediments deposited in two floodplain lakes. Shifts in the frequency of high-magnitude floods are mediated by moisture availability over midcontinental North America and correspond to the emergence and decline of Cahokia—a major late prehistoric settlement in the Mississippi River floodplain. The absence of large floods from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1200 facilitated agricultural intensification, population growth, and settlement expansion across the floodplain that are associated with the emergence of Cahokia as a regional center around A.D. 1050. The return of large floods after A.D. 1200, driven by waning midcontinental aridity, marks the onset of sociopolitical reorganization and depopulation that culminate in the abandonment of Cahokia and the surrounding region by A.D. 1350. Shifts in the frequency and magnitude of flooding may be an underappreciated but critical factor in the formation and dissolution of social complexity in early agricultural societies.

scholarly journals Trends in floods in West Africa: analysis based on 11 catchments in the region

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 4707-4719 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. N. Nka ◽  
L. Oudin ◽  
H. Karambiri ◽  
J. E. Paturel ◽  
P. Ribstein
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Vegetation Indices ◽  
Contingency Tables ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Trend Test ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Rainfall Index ◽  
Flood Magnitude ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. After the drought of the 1970s in West Africa, the variability in rainfall and land use changes mostly affected flow, and recently flooding has been said to be an increasingly common occurrence throughout the whole of West Africa. These changes have raised many questions about the impact of climate change on the flood regimes in West African countries. This paper investigates whether floods are becoming more frequent or more severe and to what extent climate patterns have been responsible for these changes. We analyzed the trends in the floods occurring in 11 catchments within West Africa's main climate zones. The methodology includes two methods for sampling flood events, namely the AM (annual maximum) method and the POT (peak over threshold), and two perspectives of analysis are presented: long-term analysis based on two long flood time series and a regional perspective involving 11 catchments with shorter series. The Mann–Kendall trend test and the Pettitt break test were used to detect nonstationarities in the time series. The trends detected in flood time series were compared to the rainfall index trends and vegetation indices using contingency tables in order to identify the main driver of change in flood magnitude and flood frequency. The relation between the flood index and the physiographic index was evaluated through a success criterion and the Cramer criterion calculated from the contingency tables. The results show the existence of trends in flood magnitude and flood frequency time series, with two main patterns. Sahelian floods show increasing flood trends and one Sudanian. catchment presents decreasing flood trends. For the overall catchments studied, trends in the maximum 5-day consecutive rainfall index (R5d) show good coherence with trends in flood, while the trends in normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVIs) do not show a significant agreement with flood trends, meaning that this index has possibly no impact on the behavior of floods in the region.

Persistent Inequality? Trade, Factor Endowments, and Inequality in Republican Latin America

2013 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leticia Arroyo Abad
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Factor Endowments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Persistent Inequality

Using a new data set, this article presents new evidence on inequality in Latin America for the nineteenth century and studies the effects of factor endowments and trade on inequality. Recent research has highlighted the link between the colonial origins of inequality and its persistence in Latin America. We find that inequality varied substantially throughout the century and across the region. We identify the impact of changing factor endowments and trade on inequality using a simple theoretical framework. This work suggests that the role of initial colonial origins has been overemphasized as important changes took place during postcolonial times.

Analysis of Gauging Station Flood Frequency Estimates in Nebraska Using L-Moments and Region of Influence Methods

1998 ◽  
Vol 1647 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Kay Provaznik ◽  
Rollin H. Hotchkiss
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Extreme Value Distribution ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Generalized Extreme Value Distribution ◽  
Potential Region ◽  
Unique Region ◽  
Extreme Flood ◽  
Flood Magnitude ◽  
L Moments ◽  
The Impact

Recent advances in predicting flood magnitude and frequency at streamgauging stations are illustrated using stream flow data from Nebraska. Prediction methods were based on statistical techniques referred to as L-moments and the region of influence method (ROI). L-moments are less sensitive to extremely high or low floods than current procedures and may provide more stable estimates of flood frequency. The ROI method for predicting flood frequency does not depend on fixed hydrologic regions but uses information from all appropriate gauges in the state to form a unique region and frequency estimate for each site. Estimates of the 100-year flood using current procedures showed statistically significant differences from estimates made using a generalized extreme value distribution with L-moments. Differences were due to the treatment of extreme flood events and illustrate the robust character of L-moments. L-moments were less sensitive to extreme floods as expected. Creating regions using the ROI method was found to be sensitive to the selection of basin attributes for assembling sites, but was not sensitive to the number of gauges initially used to create a region, nor the criterion used to eliminate a gauge from a potential region. Statistical tests revealed insignificant differences between ROI estimates of the 100-year flood when compared with estimates using current procedures. The similarity in estimates is attributed to current “filtering” procedures used that reduce the impact of extreme events. The ROI method is viewed as a more objective method of achieving the same result.

scholarly journals Decreasing uncertainty in flood frequency analyses by including historic flood events in an efficient bootstrap approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anouk Bomers ◽  
Ralph Schielen ◽  
Suzanne Hulscher
Keyword(s):  
Bootstrap Method ◽  
River System ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Rhine River ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Bootstrap Approach

Abstract. Flood frequency curves are usually highly uncertain since they are based on short data sets of measured discharges or weather conditions. To decrease the confidence intervals, an efficient bootstrap method is developed in this study. The Rhine river delta is considered as a case study. A hydraulic model is used to normalize historic flood events for anthropogenic and natural changes in the river system. As a result, the data set of measured discharges could be extended with approximately 600 years. The study shows that flood events decrease the confidence interval of the flood frequency curve significantly, specifically in the range of large floods. This even applies if the maximum discharges of these historic flood events are highly uncertain themselves.

scholarly journals Decreasing uncertainty in flood frequency analyses by including historic flood events in an efficient bootstrap approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1895-1908
Author(s):  
Anouk Bomers ◽  
Ralph M. J. Schielen ◽  
Suzanne J. M. H. Hulscher
Keyword(s):  
Bootstrap Method ◽  
River System ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Flood Frequency ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Rhine River ◽  
Flood Events ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Bootstrap Approach

Abstract. Flood frequency curves are usually highly uncertain since they are based on short data sets of measured discharges or weather conditions. To decrease the confidence intervals, an efficient bootstrap method is developed in this study. The Rhine river delta is considered as a case study. We use a hydraulic model to normalize historic flood events for anthropogenic and natural changes in the river system. As a result, the data set of measured discharges could be extended by approximately 600 years. The study shows that historic flood events decrease the confidence interval of the flood frequency curve significantly, specifically in the range of large floods. This even applies if the maximum discharges of these historic flood events are highly uncertain themselves.

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