RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 10, ES1004, doi:10.2205/2007ES000267, 2008

Damage Pattern From Natural Disasters as an Example of Realization of the Sustainable Development Concept in Practice

[38]  The above mentioned empirical relationship (and some other references omitted for reasons of space) makes us doubt the validity of a pessimistic prediction of a catastrophic growth of damage caused by natural disasters, that was mentioned in the beginning of the paper. In fact, the growth in number of disasters is mainly caused by the better record system of weak disasters. As to nonlinear growth of total damage with time, this effect (at least partly) arises from the power-series distribution of damage amount and not by its non-stationary growth.

[39]  Proceeded from the relation between the seismic disaster pattern and social-economic parameters there are all grounds to assume a decrease in intensity of the disaster flow with a large number of casualties in the developed countries, and then a further extension of this tendency to the developing countries (as their economic and social situation develops and as the rate of population growth slows down). If the tendency to growth of absolute values of material losses is preserved, than a relative stability, and possibly, a decrease of normalized values (in units of private income) seems to be quite feasible.

[40]  An attention is called to a marked uniformity of normalized values of damage from earthquakes in different countries. There is an impression, that some social communities and mankind as a whole has adapted in the course of its historical development a certain permissible (depending on concrete social-economic conditions) to a level of damages from natural disasters. It is possible to assume that if such a relation remains persistent, it will result in an optimal link between the profit from the use of some or other natural resources and losses caused by their use in the course of natural disasters (for example, the use of fertile soils in the river valleys presupposes flood damage). Thus, in case of damages from natural disasters, the principles of the sustainable development turn to be implemented. An example of the realization of the sustainable development concept in practice promises that this optimistic concept can be realized also under more complicated conditions, when people and environment will be more closely interrelated. An example of a possible practical realization of the sustainable development concept becomes even more important, because the discussion on this issue is dominated by a pessimistic viewpoint, namely, that "despite unprecedented large scale discussion of sustainable development, the world keeps developing along the trajectory of non-sustainable development'' [Kondratiev and Losev, 2002, p. 598].


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Citation: Rodkin, M. V., and V. F. Pisarenko (2008), Damage from natural disasters: Fast growth of losses or stable ratio?, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 10, ES1004, doi:10.2205/2007ES000267.

Copyright 2008 by the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences

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