Assessing current and future climate-related disaster risk: The case of Bangladesh

Description
Exposed to severe flood, typhoon and earthquake hazards, Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone countries globally. It is expected that climate change will adversely affect climate-related natural hazards and add additional stress on people exposed and the economy; at the same time, vulnerability to those hazards can be expected to decrease in Bangladesh, which managed to reduce loss of life per severe disaster event by two orders of magnitude over the last three decades.
 
In this project, RPV research addresses a major question of the disaster risk and climate change communities: How do social and natural systems driving forces affect extreme event risk in the future?
 
Building on the CATSIM model, RPV is systematically examining the importance of these drivers for future climate related risks. Consistent with downscaled IIASA SRES population and GDP scenarios, the analysis focuses on current and future monetary as well as economic risks due to large-scale flood events. Key outputs envisaged are related to the contribution of these drivers to risk and the robustness of estimates given the dynamics of hazard, exposure and vulnerability.

Duration:
Summer 2008

Project presentation:
Risk and adaptation to extreme events: Bangladesh GGI project (PDF)

IIASA Researchers:
Reinhard Mechler
Stefan Hochrainer
Georg Pflug

Responsible for this page: Jun Watabe
Last updated: 24 Feb 2011