Natural Disaster Hotspots

The Global Cyclone Total Economic Loss Risk Deciles is a 2.5 minute grid of global cyclone total economic loss risks. A process of spatially allocating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based upon the Sachs et al. (2003) methodology is utilized. First the proportional contributions of subnational units to their respective national GDP are determined using sources of various origins. The contribution rates are then applied to published World Bank Development Indicators to determine a GDP value for the subnational unit. Once the national GDP is spatially stratified into the smallest administrative units available, GDP values for grid cells are derived using population distribution data. A per capita contribution value is determined within each subnational unit, and this value is multiplied by the population per grid cell as determined from Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3) data. Once a GDP value is determined on a per grid cell basis, then the regionally variable loss rate, as derived from the historical records of EM-DAT, is used to determine the total economic loss risks posed to a grid cell by cyclone hazards. The final surface does not present absolute values of total economic loss, but rather a relative decile (1-10 with increasing risk) ranking of grid cells based upon the calculated economic loss risks. This data set is the result of collaboration among the Columbia University Center for Hazards and Risk Research (CHRR), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, and Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

To provide a spatial surface of the total economic impacts of global cyclone hazard.

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