Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
The Journal of Environment & Development
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Below, R.
Right arrow Articles by Dilley, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Documenting Drought-Related Disasters

A Global Reassessment

Regina Below

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters

Emily Grover-Kopec

International Research Institute of Climate and Society

Maxx Dilley

United Nations Development Programme

Until recently, drought events were inconsistently recorded in EM-DAT. Problems included inconsistent establishment of start and end dates, misattribution of losses, and difficulties with handling multiyear and multicountry events, mostly arising from the slow onset, spatially extensive, prolonged, and complex nature of drought. This article summarizes the procedures and results of a comprehensive review of 807 drought and 76 famine entries from 1900 to 2004. A standardized methodology has been developed for characterizing drought events that is consistent with all other natural hazards recorded in the database. The result consists in a reduction of 56% from the original number of drought entries, a 20% increase in the number of deaths and a 35% increase in economic losses. Based on the revised data, more than half of all deaths associated with natural hazards are now classified as drought related, and only floods rank higher in terms of the number of people affected.

Key Words: drought • famine • disaster • EMM-DAT • methodology

The Journal of Environment & Development, Vol. 16, No. 3, 328-344 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1070496507306222
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?