The Global Long-term Effects of Storm Surge Damages on Human Settlements

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Kunze
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Human Settlements ◽  
Combining Data

<p>The influence of natural conditions on human settlements are immense. While a friendly and calm environment can lead to prosperity and growth, a hostile one with frequent natural disasters can result in stagnation, collapse, and even death. Tropical cyclones, as an unpredictable and recurring disastrous events, pose a considerable threat to prosperous development of human societies. The IPCC estimates that globally around 250 million people are vulnerable to storm surge events every year. If the threat is too large, a natural adaptation strategy would seem to move away to less dangerous places. It thus can be considered puzzling that there is a positive trend of moving to coastal flooding zones in Sub-Saharan Africa, North America and Asia, and this is projected to continue in the future. Additionally, climate change may increase the local exposure to storm surge by rising sea levels and changing intensity of tropical cyclones.</p><p>Given this worrisome development, a systematic analysis of the relationship between settlement structures and tropical cyclones is called for. In this paper we analyze whether people relocate from hazardous areas impacted by tropical cyclones. Importantly, the greatest threat from a tropical cyclone is generally due to the accompanying storm surge. But, because storm surge levels are hard to model, as of date no global (economic) impact study has attempted to model or used historic storm surge data to estimate the economic impact of tropical storms. Rather most studies only focus on wind damages, while other also include rain damages. Within this paper, we are closing this gap by explicitly modeling historic storm surge data worldwide from 1850-2015 and linking this to local population settlement. </p><p>By combining data on bathymetry, tidal cycles, weather conditions, and  pressure drop models for the tropical cyclones we are able to estimate spatial storm surge data at a resolution of 5 arc minutes. This data then allows us, in a first step, to analyze its systematic impact on historical geo-referenced population and settlement structure data at a spatial scale of 5 arc minutes. We are able to show some interesting population patterns in response to tropical cyclones. Contrary to many empirical studies, we find that people do settle away from hazardous areas. This effect is especially large for low elevation coastal zones, while for non low elevation coastal areas we find no effect. The same pattern can be found for developing and developed countries, but the shrinking of the population is 39 percent larger in developing countries. </p>

scholarly journals Mapping 20 Years of Urban Expansion in 45 Urban Areas of Sub-Saharan Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 525
Author(s):  
Yann Forget ◽  
Michal Shimoni ◽  
Marius Gilbert ◽  
Catherine Linard
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Annual Growth Rate ◽  
Urban Dynamics ◽  
Mapping Approach ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Impact

By 2050, half of the net increase in the world’s population is expected to reside in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), driving high urbanization rates and drastic land cover changes. However, the data-scarce environment of SSA limits our understanding of the urban dynamics in the region. In this context, Earth Observation (EO) is an opportunity to gather accurate and up-to-date spatial information on urban extents. During the last decade, the adoption of open-access policies by major EO programs (CBERS, Landsat, Sentinel) has allowed the production of several global high resolution (10–30 m) maps of human settlements. However, mapping accuracies in SSA are usually lower, limited by the lack of reference datasets to support the training and the validation of the classification models. Here we propose a mapping approach based on multi-sensor satellite imagery (Landsat, Sentinel-1, Envisat, ERS) and volunteered geographic information (OpenStreetMap) to solve the challenges of urban remote sensing in SSA. The proposed mapping approach is assessed in 17 case studies for an average F1-score of 0.93, and applied in 45 urban areas of SSA to produce a dataset of urban expansion from 1995 to 2015. Across the case studies, built-up areas averaged a compound annual growth rate of 5.5% between 1995 and 2015. The comparison with local population dynamics reveals the heterogeneity of urban dynamics in SSA. Overall, population densities in built-up areas are decreasing. However, the impact of population growth on urban expansion differs depending on the size of the urban area and its income class.

scholarly journals Erratum to: The economic impact of future increase in tropical cyclones in Japan

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 407-408
Author(s):  
Christian Webersik ◽  
Miguel Esteban ◽  
Tomoya Shibayama
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Tropical Cyclones

Factors impacting on effective implementation of land title registration – a perspective from Ghana

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Benjamin Armah Quaye
Keyword(s):  
Information Management ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Registration System ◽  
Land Registration ◽  
Effective Implementation

Many governments across Sub Saharan Africa are in the process of introducing or improving land registration and formal titling systems. One of the stated aims is to achieve modern land information management in order to facilitate the development of the land market. It is often assumed that, because formal systems and institutions have enjoyed some positive outcomes in terms of realising wealth in developed countries, they will succeed equally well in developing economies. However, findings from empirical studies across several developing countries show that the performance of formal land registration systems has been mixed. Relying on empirical data from two major cities in Ghana, this paper examines the operations of land registration system with particular reference to its land information management aspects. The analysis shows that a divergence in the implementation of principles of the legal framework and organisational challenges are major contributory factors to deficiencies in the land information regime of the land registration system. Hence, there is a need for effective implementation of well-crafted and functional legal frameworks for land registration, to ensure that the principles and operations of land registration are locally relevant and sensitive. To address the inadequate organisational capacity there is a need to improve the capacity of the human resource base of the officials of the formal land administration sector. The procedure for land registration must also be streamlined in order to eliminate unnecessary requirements and thereby reduce the transaction time, costs of registration and frustration of clients.

scholarly journals Coastal Forecasts and Storm Surge Predictions for Tropical Cyclones: A Timely Partnership Program

Oceanography ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Graber ◽  
Vincent Cardone ◽  
Robert Jensen ◽  
Donald Slinn ◽  
Scott Hagen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
Partnership Program

scholarly journals The economic impact of future increase in tropical cyclones in Japan

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (52) ◽  
pp. 522002
Author(s):  
Christian Wehersik ◽  
M Esteban ◽  
T Shibayama
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Tropical Cyclones

scholarly journals Digital Service Taxes and Their Application

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megersa Kelbesa
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Digital Service

Many developing economies have seen a rise in e-commerce activity within their borders, and a decline in income from traditional industries as a result of COVID-19, meaning the digital economy offers a potentially unexploited source of tax revenue. . As a result, more developing countries may soon begin adopting some sort of digital tax. The economic activities which may be subject to the Digital Services Tax (DST) may vary from country to country. It will, therefore, be necessary for businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions across developing countries to keep up with the changes in digital taxes. Before implementing a DST scheme, developing countries are advised to perform an in-depth cost-benefit analysis and due considerations. Some developing (and several developed) countries have already unilaterally implemented a “provisional” DST system. Other developing countries are on the process of implementing DST or have simply announced that they will implement a DST soon. Although most of the countries so far actively working on DST (are rich countries, a growing list of developing countries are joining the process. Some examples include the following: Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Argentina and, Chile. It is important to mention that the literature on DST is very limited – although growing, and the evidence base around the economic impacts is particularly scarce. This is partly due to the quite recent nature of DST implementation. The evidence is even scarcer for developing countries – Due to these limitations, this rapid evidence review looks at different types of available literature – including reports and blogs issued by international financial institutions and development agencies. The rest of the report will give an overview of key proposed approaches to tax the digital economy, provide a very brief account of the economic impact of DST, provide a brief mapping of the implementation of digital service taxes in developing countries, provide a brief description of each DST system and about the economic impact of the DST, finally a brief account or attributes of a “good” DST system.

scholarly journals Malavika Karlekar (ed.). Paradigms of Learning: The Total Literacy Campaign in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 2004. 356 pages. Paperback. Indian Rupees 375.00.

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-169
Author(s):  
Samina Nazli
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Adult Literacy ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Least Developed Countries ◽  
Literacy Campaign ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Sub Saharan

Raising the standards of literacy in the developing world has been a major goal of the less developed countries since most of them became independent in the process of decolonisation that followed World War II. The Human Development Report 2004, brought out by the United Nations Development Programme lists some major improvements in increasing literacy levels of a number of countries between the year 1990 and 2002. For example, low human development countries like Togo increased their adult literacy rates from 44.2 percent in 1990 to 59.6 percent in 2002. Congo saw an increase in its literacy rate for the same period from 67.1 percent to 82.8 percent. The rates for Uganda, Kenya, Yemen, and Nigeria are 56.1 percent and 68.9 percent, 70.8 percent and 84.3 percent, 32.7 percent and 49.0 percent, and 48.7 percent and 68.8 percent respectively. If one examines the breakdown by region, the least developed countries as a group saw an increase in their adult literacy rates from 43.0 percent to 52.5 percent, the Arab states from 50.8 percent to 63.3 percent, South Asia from 47.0 percent to 57.6 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa from 50.8 percent to 63.2 percent and East Asia and the Pacific from 79.8 percent to 90.3 percent. If we look at the increase in the levels of literacy from the perspective of medium human development and low human development, the figures are 71.8 percent and 80.4 percent, and 42.5 percent and 54.3 percent, respectively.

A Comparative Analysis of South Africa as a Semi-Industrialised Developing Country

1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Knight
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Industrialised Countries

South Africa has neither a developed nor a typical underdeveloped economy. Too often it has been wrongly classified, along with, say, Australia and New Zealand, as one of the peripheral developed countries, because only a part of the economy and population have the characteristics we associate with that group. Yet its economy is distinctly different from others in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa falls squarely into the category which the World Bank classifies as ‘upper middle-income’ developing economies, with G.N.P. per capita in 1982 ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 and averaging $2,500, thereby including South Africa, with $2,700.1 (By contrast, Kenya's G.N.P. per capita was $400 and Britain's $10,000). The World Bank's group includes Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. South Africa shares many structural economic characteristics with these semi-industrialised countries.

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