Rational - Response of Flood Events to Land Use and Climate Change - page 2

Fig. 1.1 Number of natural disasters reported 1990-2010 [ 1 ]

Table 1.1 The number of affected people and economic losses [ 2 ]
No. of events No. of affected people Damage (in US$ 1000)

Period World World World

1900-1980 581 407,380,734 2,496,946

1981-1990 546 469,855,416 46,648,071

1991-2000 966 1,463,420,671 233,075,277

2001-2010 1592 874,495,941 141,949,993

Europe Europe Europe

1900-1980 53 594,454 658,250

1981-1990 51 839,522 10,482,300

1991-2000 147 4,679,707 41,674,964

2001-2010 209 3,205,507 41,793,882

In comparison to the previous decade (1991-2000), even if the number of affected
people and economic loss both decreased by about 40 % during 2001-2010, the
number of flood events would have still increased by 65 %.
Within the 20 year period from 1991 to 2010, the number of flood events more
than doubled, the number of affected people nearly tripled, and the damage
multiplied by a factor of more than seven in comparison to the 91 year period from
1900 to 1990 (Table 1.1 ).