The economics of natural disasters: implications and challenges for food security
The economics of natural disasters: implications and challenges for food security
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1574-0862.2007.00233.x
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发表时间：
2007-12-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Hemrich, Gunter
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
de Haen, Hartwig;Hemrich, Gunter
世界上越来越多的穷人生活在高自然灾害风险与高脆弱性同时存在的条件下。因此，自然灾害对穷人造成了不成比例的打击。在过去十年中，自然灾害每年夺走7.9万人的生命，影响2亿多人，每年造成的损失近700亿美元。专家预测，灾害将变得更加频繁，其影响将更加严重，预计未来50年全球成本将增加5倍，主要原因是气候变化和世界人口进一步集中在脆弱的栖息地。文章认为，为了减轻灾害对贫困人口群体的影响，发展政策和灾害管理需要相互支持。它侧重于灾害对粮食安全构成的挑战，建议在灾害多发地区，提高抗灾能力的措施应成为粮食安全政策和战略的组成部分。它将减少饥饿的双轨方法扩展为“三轨方法”，适当关注贯穿各领域的灾害风险管理措施。需要更多关注的实际领域包括风险信息和分析；土地利用规划；改善有形基础设施；多样化和风险转移机制。在灾害风险和脆弱性都很高的地方，最需要减少灾害风险的投资。由于农业特别容易受到灾害风险的影响，减少这种脆弱性的措施，即保护农业土地、水和其他资产，应在发展战略和粮食安全政策中得到更大的重视。投资抗灾能力涉及到权衡取舍。确定所涉及的成本、收益和权衡将是农业经济学家的一项突出任务。
A large and growing share of the world's poor lives under conditions in which high risk of natural hazards coincides with high vulnerability. As a result natural disasters hit the poor disproportionately. In the last decade, natural disasters claimed 79,000 lives each year and affected more than 200 million people, with damages amounting to almost US$70 billion annually. Experts predict that disasters will become even more frequent and their impact more severe, expecting a 5-fold global cost increase over the next 50 years, mainly due to climate change and a further concentration of the world's population in vulnerable habitats. The article argues that in order to mitigate disaster impact on poor population groups, development policy and disaster management need to become mutually supportive. Focusing on challenges disasters pose to food security, it proposes that in disaster-prone locations measures to improve disaster resilience should be an integral part of food security policies and strategies. It expands the twin-track approach to hunger reduction to a "triple-track approach," giving due attention to cross-cutting disaster risk-management measures. Practical areas requiring more attention include risk information and analysis; land use planning; upgrading physical infrastructures; diversification and risk transfer mechanisms. Investments in reducing disaster risk will be most needed where both hazard risk and vulnerability are high. As agriculture is particularly vulnerable to disaster risk, measures to reduce this vulnerability, i.e., protecting agricultural lands and water and other assets, should get greater weight in development strategies and food security policies. Investing in disaster resilience involves trade-offs. Identifying the costs, benefits, and trade-offs involved will be a prominent task of agricultural economists.