{"id":276466,"date":"2023-08-31T10:44:24","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T08:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276466"},"modified":"2023-08-31T10:44:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T08:44:27","slug":"global-and-u-s-disaster-databases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276466","title":{"rendered":"Global and U.S. Disaster Databases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From substack.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By ROGER PIELKE JR.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Counts of disasters and their impacts are a big deal these days. For instance, such data is central to evaluating progress with respect to the United Nations\u00a0Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction<\/a>. Disaster time series are also increasingly used as political footballs in climate advocacy and opposition. Separating out scientifically-accurate information from that which is not can be difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post provides a brief users\u2019 guide to oft-cited disaster databases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been studying, researching and publishing on these (and other) disaster datasets for almost 30 years. One thing I\u2019ve learned is that we need better data on disasters \u2014 collected using consistent methods and with a global scope. As\u00a0one paper<\/a>\u00a0concluded in 2022:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reliable and complete data held in disaster databases are imperative to inform effective disaster preparedness and mitigation policies. Nonetheless, disaster databases are highly prone to missingness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Disasters are one area where philanthropists have a huge opportunity to invest some modest funds to enable the collection and assessment of robust data with global significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below, I use a stoplight to indicate of some oft-cited databases, data quality in the following categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n