A recent report by DisasterAWARE Enterprise has revealed the world’s most vulnerable nations with India ranking lowest in overall resilience, which along with China, has the largest populations with the most potential exposure to natural disasters.
The 2024 Disaster Risk Index Report provides a comprehensive evaluation of disaster risk, vulnerability and resilience of the 10 largest nations by GNP.
As the world is grappling with an array of complex challenges, ranging from climate change to geopolitical instability, marking the emerging field of risk intelligence as increasingly pertinent, as business leaders risk losing trillions if ill prepared, the report highlights.
The Disaster Risk Index offers crucial insights into how catastrophic events could impact the economies and populations of these different countries, as well as assessing their readiness and ability to recover from events.
This data serves a variety of industries, including insurance, as understanding each country’s disaster risk can help to make more informed decisions regarding investment, risk management, and resource allocation, for example.
“The Disaster Risk Index provides a snapshot into the groundbreaking insights of the DisasterAWARE Enterprise platform and how it can be used by operations and security professionals to more easily plan and respond to natural or man-made disasters with data traditionally reserved for state agencies and NGOs,” said Bob Miller, CEO of DisasterAWARE Enterprise.
He continued: “Private entities can now foresee the potential impacts of catastrophic events such as the recent Maui fires or typhoon Idalia in Florida on their nations, economies, and people can be better prepared for them.
“By comprehensively evaluating factors like natural disasters, resilience, and vulnerability in real-time, we are empowering businesses, and organisations to make more informed decisions that can save lives, keep businesses operating, and protect communities.”
The report revealed that Germany is the most resilient nation to natural hazard, followed by Canada with India ranking the worst among the top ten wealthiest nations by GNP.
Germany’s high resilience stems from strengths across areas like infrastructure, governance, economic capacity, and social equality.
At the top of the natural disaster category was flooding, with 6,808 events reported between 2021 and 2022. Nearly 86% of flood events reported in the top ten came from the US. Fires ranked as the second most common natural disaster with nearly 1,800 events reported.
The report found that the US has an average vulnerability score, a surprising result according to analysts, despite being the largest economy globally. This, they stated, highlights that economic strength alone does not confer resilience against disasters.
Specific vulnerabilities for the US include high economic inequality and recent major disaster impacts.
At the same time, China ranked low at 9th in resilience despite the country having the second largest GNP globally, another surprising factor according to the report.
This was mainly due to weaknesses in governance, infrastructure, and environmental capacity.
Japan ranked fifth as the most resilient country, and has the greatest GNP exposure at $1.6T and China, the ninth most resilient country, ranked second with $364B in GNP exposure.
The report revealed that China and India have the largest populations with the most potential exposure to natural disasters.
The US, China, India and Brazil have relatively poor environmental capacity scores, but strengthening its environmental policies could enhance their resilience, analysts noted.
Finally, the report also pointed out that the need for improved mitigation and preparedness has been highlighted by the recent major disaster that have impacted France, Japan and Italy.
