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Evidence for sharp increase in the economic damages of extreme natural disasters.

ABSTRACT: Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Does this translate into increased economic damages? To date, empirical assessments of damage trends have been inconclusive. Our study demonstrates a temporal increase in extreme damages, after controlling for a number of factors. We analyze event-level data using quantile regressions to capture patterns in the damage distribution (not just its mean) and find strong evidence of progressive rightward skewing and tail-fattening over time. While the effect of time on averages is hard to detect, effects on extreme damages are large, statistically significant, and growing with increasing percentiles. Our results are consistent with an upwardly curved, convex damage function, which is commonly assumed in climate-economics models. They are also robust to different specifications of control variables and time range considered and indicate that the risk of extreme damages has increased more in temperate areas than in tropical ones. We use simulations to show that underreporting bias in the data does not weaken our inferences; in fact, it may make them overly conservative.

SUBMITTER: Coronese M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6815159 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evidence for sharp increase in the economic damages of extreme natural disasters.

Coronese Matteo M Lamperti Francesco F Keller Klaus K Chiaromonte Francesca F Roventini Andrea A

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20191007 43

Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Does this translate into increased economic damages? To date, empirical assessments of damage trends have been inconclusive. Our study demonstrates a temporal increase in extreme damages, after controlling for a number of factors. We analyze event-level data using quantile regressions to capture patterns in the damage distribution (not just its mean) and find strong evidence of progressive rightward skewing and tail-f ...[more]

PMID: 31591192

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Project description:ObjectivesReviews of violence against children in disaster settings focus on armed conflict. Little is understood about natural disasters which has implications in planning humanitarian response. We examined the magnitude and direction of the association between exposure to natural disasters and physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children, and assessed the quality of the evidence.MethodsWe searched 15 health and social science databases from first record until May 16, 2018. Publications describing all types of quantitative study design were eligible for inclusion. We presented study characteristics and quality in a narrative form and generated pooled estimates using a three-level random effects model. We evaluated Cochrane's Q with p-values below 0.10 and radial plots to assess heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses explored differential results by violence form, study design, and analysis method.Results11 publications met inclusion criteria. The majority were cross-sectional studies examining physical or sexual violence in the United States. We found no evidence of a consistent association or directional influence between natural disasters and violence against children. Combined categorical violence outcomes had substantial heterogeneity [Q (df = 66) = 252.83, p < 0.001]. Subgroups without evidence of heterogeneity had confidence intervals that included a possible null effect. Our findings were mainly limited by inconsistencies in operational definitions of violence, a lack of representative sampling, and unclear establishment of temporal order between natural disaster exposure and violence outcomes.ConclusionsBased on the available evidence, we cannot confidently conclude that natural disasters increase the level or severity of violence against children above non-disaster settings, however heterogeneity and study quality hamper our ability to draw firm conclusions. More nuanced and rigorous research is needed to inform practice and policy as natural disasters increasingly affect human populations.

Dataset Information

Evidence for sharp increase in the economic damages of extreme natural disasters.

Publications

Evidence for sharp increase in the economic damages of extreme natural disasters.

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