future trends in natural hazard losses dave petley, durham university 6 th april 2013 email:...

Future trends in natural hazard losses

Dave Petley, Durham University

6th April 2013

Email: [email protected]: @davepetley

Blog: http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/

Context

Copyright © AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved.

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.Niels Bohr

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.John Sladek

IPCC view of role of physical and social issues in hydrometeorological disasters

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Number of natural hazard events and number of fatalities (EM-DAT data)


1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 20200

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sEvents

Flooding in China

Flooding in China

Fatalities



1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 20200

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Events

Fatalities

Flooding in China

Flooding in China



1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 20200

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0.01

0.1

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Year

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Events

Fatalities

Trends in total numbers are driven by hydrometeorological events


1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 20200

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Year

Nu

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Flood

Total

Storm

In the last decade Tropical cyclone energy has been unusually low


Ryan Maue: http://policlimate.com/tropical/


0

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Flood

Storm

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Or: international strategies?


1970 1980 1990 2000 20100

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Earthquakes and volcanoes


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2010

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Earthquake (seismic activity)

Volcano

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Simkin and Siebert (1994): number of active volcanoes

Repo

rted

num

ber o

f acti

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olca

noes

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yea

r

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0

1800 1850 1900 1950 1990 Year

WW1 WW2

USGS data on occurrence of large earthquakes (M≥6.5)


1973

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6.5

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Year

Ma

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itu

de

Future of hydro-meteorological hazards – IPCC SREX report


• Mean temperature (or precipitation etc) might rise

• Weather may become more variable

• Change in shape – shift towards higher extremes


Exposure to Tropical cyclones

Exposure to Floods

IPCC SREX report

Future earthquake hazard – a case study from Nepal


Kathmandu destroyed in an earthquake in 1934?20,000 deaths


Himalayan Seismic gaps (Roger Bilham)


Himalayan earthquake potential (Roger Bilham)


Scenario – rupture of 1505 fault section


Geology map of Nepal


Dahal 2013

Topographic map of Nepal


NPCS 2013

Population density map of Nepal


NPCS 2013

Likely pattern of shaking – Wenchuan data


Xiao Yun Li

Pea

k gr

ound

acc

eler

atio

n (

gals

)


Pea

k gr

ound

acc

eler

atio

n (

gals

)

Likely pattern of shaking – Wenchuan dataXiao Yun Li


Pea

k gr

ound

acc

eler

atio

n (

gals

)

Likely pattern of shaking – Wenchuan dataXiao Yun Li

50 km = 200 gal

100 km = 100 gal

10 km = 550 gal

Population density map of Nepal


NPCS 2013

Zone of >0.2 g shaking

Impacts


• Kathmandu – even a M=7.0 event is expected to kill 100,000 people in the city

Hospitals, schools and the airport


Road network


Kathmandu access roads are very landslide prone


Nepal earthquake scenario


• M=8 earthquake affects Western Nepal

• >100,000 people killed in Kathmandu Valley (probably much higher)• Most of 2.5 million people rendered homeless• All utilities (water, power, communications) lost

• Kathmandu airport runway inoperable• Kathmandu valley access roads completely blocked by landslides• Current thinking is that it will be three weeks before communication lines

are reopened• All access via north India, which will also have been profoundly affected

• Very high levels of loss in rural areas• Communications lines exceptionally difficult in those regions

• i.e. Haiti, but much worse

The future: threatened cities from earthquakes

Map: University of Colorado and NYT

Arctic sea ice death spiral: https://sites.google.com/site/pettitclimategraphs/pettit-climate-graphs

Future patterns of loss


• Greater economic costs are inevitable – more assets to destroy

• Hazardous events:– Hydrometeorological disasters will probably increase as extremes become more

common

• But some may decrease in some areas (e.g. tropical cyclones?)

– No effective change in rate of tectonic hazards

• Patterns of vulnerability will change– Greater economic assets provide resilience– But a larger urban population changes patterns of risk– Increased pressures from climate change?

• We should anticipate the million fatality or trillion dollar loss event

David Petley Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @davepetleyBlog: http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/

future trends in natural hazard losses dave petley, durham university 6 th april 2013 email:...

Documents

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