RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 10, ES1004, doi:10.2205/2007ES000267, 2008
[41] It is common to consider that the noted growth of damage from natural disasters depends on the increase in number of population, the development of potentially hazardous industries, and general deterioration of geological environment. A standard extrapolation of growth of an average amount of damage makes it possible to predict, that the entire economic gain can be taken up by still increasing losses from natural disasters by the mid-XXI century. However, the statistical approach based on mean values used in calculation is not quite correct in this particular case. The empirical distribution of amounts of damage from natural disasters, as a rule, corresponds to the power-law heavy tail distribution, and and formally estimated means turn to be infinite for such distributions.
[42] The application of more correct statistical approaches to describe a disaster pattern results in a qualitative change of the prediction pattern, when nonlinear growth (at least partly) does not depend on an actual nonlinear growth of damage amount, but is governed by the power distribution law of damage amount. The obtained comparison gives grounds to interpret damage caused by disasters as an example of the implementation of the sustainable development concept. The rise of cost due to damage will show a tendency to decrease of normalized values of losses as the social-economic situation develops. The presented analysis was based mainly on statistical data on seismic disasters, however, the authors believe that the obtained results can be, to a greater extent, used by the study of other types of natural disasters.
Citation: 2008), Damage from natural disasters: Fast growth of losses or stable ratio?, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 10, ES1004, doi:10.2205/2007ES000267.
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