Financing Infrastructure for Climate-Change Adaptation in Developing East Asia

There are various definitions of disasters, depending on the institution defining them. This report uses the definition from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), ‘a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts’.1 Effects of disasters can be immediate and localised, but they are often widespread and can last for long periods. The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) – one of the leading institutions for disaster data and analysis – further classifies disasters into two groups: natural and technological. Natural disasters consist of several sub-groups, including geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological, biological, and extra-terrestrial. Technological disasters consist of industrial, transport, and miscellaneous accidents. Due to its geography and associated features – the Pacific Ring of Fire, several major faults, and tropical weather – East Asia experiences a large number of natural disasters. Although China and the United States have the most number, many countries in East Asia rank in the top 10 globally of those having the most natural disasters.