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Indicator Specification
The rationale for the indicator production has not been identified
This indicator considers the number of fatalities, and the overall and insured economic losses from weather and climate-related events in EEA member countries since 1980. Hazards considered are those classified as meteorological hazards, hydrological hazards and climatological hazards as used by Munich Re and based on the classification by the International Council for Science (ICSU).
Integrated Research on Disaster Risk. (2014). Peril Classification and Hazard Glossary (IRDR DATA Publication No. 1). Beijing: Integrated Research on Disaster Risk.
The units used in this indicator are the number of events, and damages in euros (2019 euro value).
In April 2013, the European Commission presented the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (COM/2013/0216). One of the objectives is better informed decision-making, by further developing Climate-ADAPT as the 'first-stop shop' for adaptation information in Europe. In 2018, the European Commission published an evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy (COM(2018) 738) and a revised version is foreseen to be published in 2021.
Article 6 of Decision No. 1313/2013/EU of the European Parliament and the Council on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism obliges the EU Member States to develop risk assessments at national or appropriate sub-national levels and to make a summary of the relevant elements thereof. It is summarised in an Overview of natural and man-made disaster risks the European Union may face (SWD/2020/0330).
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (UN, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030), including ‘Understanding disaster risk’, requires that the signatory countries systematically evaluate, record, share and publicly account for disaster losses and understand the economic impacts at national and sub-national levels.
No targets has been identified for this indicator
This assessment is based on the Munich Re NatCatSERVICE dataset and the Eurostat collection of economic indicators, whereas data from earlier years not covered by Eurostat have been completed using data from the Annual Macro-Economic Database of the European Commission (AMECO), the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook (WEO), the Total Economy Database (TED) and the World Bank database.
Data are received from the Munich Re NatCatSERVICE under institutional agreement and have been adjusted to account for inflation. They are presented in 2019 euro values.
Definition of a loss event: the event can occur in several countries; events are counted by country and by year and type of natural hazard.
The European Commission is working with Member States, the ISDR and other international organisations to improve data on disaster losses. The JRC has prepared guidance for recording and sharing disaster damage and loss data, status and best practices for disaster loss data recording in EU Member States and recommendations for a European approach for recording disaster losses. Once comparable national databases on disaster losses are available for all EU Member States and EEA member countries and these data are reported, this EEA indicator can possibly be based on such data.
The analysis reported here includes all EEA member countries and the United Kingdom and Turkey, including that part of the country that is classified by NatCatSERVICE as not belonging to Europe. This is why the results reported here may be slightly different to data reported by Munich Re itself.
Data gap filling is not necessary
No methodology references available.
Not applicable
Information for Europe can in theory be extracted from different global disaster databases, including the EMDAT database maintained by CRED that places a particular focus on human fatalities, and displaced and affected people, and the NatCatSERVICE database maintained by Munich Re that provides data on insured and overall losses (used in this indicator). The 'disaster thresholds' for an event to be included in these global databases are as follows:
Over recent years, these global databases have been harmonised, although some differences remain. During recent decades, these databases have improved their reporting, which means that caution is needed in formulating conclusions about trends. In addition, both databases are less suitable for analysing the impacts of smaller events or for analysis at the sub-national level.
Further information on uncertainties is provided in the EEA report on Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 (http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/climate-impacts-and-vulnerability-2016/).
Not applicable.
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/direct-losses-from-weather-disasters-4 or scan the QR code.
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