Natural Disaster Data Book 2022 (An Analytical Overview) - World (2024)

ADRC publishes the Natural Disaster Databook annually to provide statistical and analytical perspectives of disaster data. For its 2022 issue, ADRC used the data from the Emergency Event Database (EM-DAT) downloaded on 16 May 2023 to analyze the number of occurrences, deaths, people affected, and economic losses from disaster events – focusing only on eight disaster types: drought, earthquake, extreme temperature, flood, landslide, storm, wildfire, and volcanic activity (Annex 1: Notes on the Sources of Data). The analysis compares the following:

• Comparison of natural disasters in 2022 with natural disasters in the last 30 years (1992-2021)

• Comparison of climate-related disasters in 2022 with climate-related disasters in the last 30 years (1992-2021)

• Comparison of the COVID-19 situations between global level and regional level (highlighting the situations in ADRC member countries)

Here are some of the observations. First, although there was an increasing trend of disaster occurrence globally, a decreasing trend of disaster occurrence was observed in Asian region in 2022. Likewise, the number of deaths, people affected, and the economic losses from natural disasters in Asia in 2022 were lower compared to the annual averages for the past 30 years (1992-2021). Secondly, flood and storm remain to be the frequently occurring disaster types globally and in the Asian region in 2022 and during the past 30 years. Moreover, climate-related disasters, particularly from flood, storm, and drought, account for the highest number of people affected and economic losses in 2022 and during the past 30 years. Thirdly, towards the end of 2022, both the number of confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 had declined drastically following a huge surge around the globe and at ADRC member countries. This drastic decline resulted in the lifting of COVID19 restrictions and opening of borders in over 100 countries in the beginning of 2023.

In 2022, a total of 388 disasters occurred globally. This is higher compared to the annual average for the past 30 years (1992-2021), which is 340. Among the most devasting disasters in 2022 were floods in Pakistan (June to September), droughts in Africa (e.g., Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, China, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Niger, and Mali), typhoons in the Philippines (e.g., Megi in April and Nalgae in October), and hurricanes (e.g., Hurricane Ian in Cuba and Hurricane Fiona in Dominican Republic). While flood was the most frequent disaster in 2022, extreme temperature caused the most deaths (16,416 deaths) accounting to more than half of all disaster-related deaths. However, during the last 30 years (1992 to 2021), earthquakes remained to cause the most deaths from at an average of 990 deaths per disaster event compared to only 52 per disaster event in 2022. The damage caused by disasters in 2022 (USD 223.84 million) is higher than the annual average disaster damage for the past 30 years (annual average of USD 121.46 million).

The situation in Asia is different, where there is a decreasing trend of disaster impacts in 2022 compared to the last 30 years (1992-2021). Occurrence of disasters in 2022 is 137, lower compared to the annual average of 141 for the past 30 years. The number of deaths is also lower in 2022 at 7,750 compared to 30,909 annual average for the past 30 years. Disaster affected people in 2022 is 64.23 million, less than half of the average number of affected persons per year for the past 30 years, which is 168.81 million. The same is true for the amount of disaster damage. It’s USD 48.75 million in 2022, relatively lower than the average annual damage for the past 30 years, which is USD 52.88 million.

Climate-related disasters (e.g., drought, flood, and storm) have been increasing globally, particularly since the 1940s. In 2022, a total of 308 climate-related disasters was recorded worldwide, higher than those from the last 30 years (1992 to 2021) that showed an annual average of 16 droughts, 147 floods, and 100 storms. Except for drought, the number of people affected by 2022 climate-related disasters was less compared to the average number of people affected per year by the same type of disasters during the past 30 years. Meanwhile, the number of people affected by drought is 80 percent more compared to the annual average of the past 30 years. In Asia, a total of 98 climate-related disaster events occurred in 2022, which were mostly floods.

Regarding COVID-19 situation, the highest number of confirmed cases for 2022 was reported on 19 December with a total of 44.20 million confirmed cases reported on a single day. A notable increase was observed in China in December due to an Omicron subvariant with at least eight other Omicron subvariants were identified. Among the ADRC member countries, China showed the greatest cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 84.93 million by the end of 2022. This was followed by India with 44.68 million, Japan with 29.11 million, and the Republic of Korea with 29.06 million. Several ADRC member countries started to relax COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, allowing more lenient policies on movement domestically. India, Republic of Korea, and Japan are among the countries that lifted their domestic restrictions. Vaccination also became a priority in ADRC member countries following the relaxation of restrictions with all countries reporting to have had at least two vaccines administered by 2022.