Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation of Coastal Zones to Global Change - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 151

decreased in all regions of the world for various reasons, in particular
the implementation of warning systems. However, the risk of
economic losses has increased in less developed countries, particularly
in Africa and Asia, where projections based on socio-economic
scenarios indicate that this risk will continue to increase, in part for
reasons linked to the adoption of development models that do not
decrease the vulnerabilities of the coastal zones. One example where
these different risk factors were combined was the super typhoon
Haiyan, of category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which generated a
storm surge of about four meters height in the island of Leyte in the
Philippines. This tropical cyclone ravaged the coasts of the islands in
the central area of the Philippines in November 2013, caused more
than 5,000 deaths and displaced tens of thousands of people, mainly in
the coastal shanty towns (Figure 4.8).
Figure 4.8. Destruction caused by typhoon Haiyan (November 2013) in the coastal
shantytowns of the town of Tacloban in the Philippines (photo: The Weather Channel)
In the middle latitudes, storms are associated with the general
circulation of the atmosphere. Since the 1970s the tropical belt has
widened, storm tracks and jet streams have shifted toward the poles
which implies a migration of the trajectories of extratropical storms to
higher latitudes. Yet, the observations and the climate scenarios have