OIC Statistical Outlook 2021: Cost of Natural Disasters in OIC Member Countries
Date: 18 October 2021

The “OIC Statistical Outlook 2021: Cost of Natural Disasters in OIC Member Countries” presents data and analysis on nine natural disaster types (drought, earthquake, flood, storm, landslide, wildfire, extreme temperature, mass movement, and volcanic activity) based on the data extracted from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), EM-DAT International Disaster Database.

This issue of OIC Statistical Outlook Series sheds light on the broad human and economic cost of natural disasters in the OIC countries group in comparison with the world from a statistical perspective. More specifically, the Report analyses number of recorded natural disaster occurrences as well as associated human and economic costs in the OIC countries group and the world by considering ten-year intervals between 1991 and 2020.

The Report draws attention to the increasing number of natural disasters in the OIC countries group from 573 in the 1991-2000 period to 785 in the 2011-2020 period. As pointed out in the Report, floods were responsible for the largest number of natural disaster occurrences recorded in the OIC countries group, with an increase from 257 in the 1991-2000 period to 470 in the 2011-2020 period.

Concerning the human cost of natural disasters, the number of people affected from natural disasters in the OIC countries group increased from 197 million in the 1991-2000 period to 199 million in the 2011-2020 period. The Report shows that much of the change in the number of natural disaster occurrences over the last three decades was due to a significant rise in the number of droughts, extreme temperatures, mass movements, storms, and wildfires, which are all climate-related events. In the period 2011-2020, 91 million people were affected by floods in the OIC countries group, which was previously 97 million in the period 1991-2000. Floods were followed by droughts that affected 82 million people in the 2011-2020 period, a significant increase from 63 million people affected during the 1991-2000 period in the OIC countries group. On the other hand, total number of deaths due to natural disasters in the OIC countries group decreased from 203 thousand in the 1991-2000 period to 27 thousand in the 2011-2020 period. In the 2011-2020 period, 11 thousand people died as a result of floods in the OIC countries group corresponding to around 23% of the deaths due to floods in the world. Earthquakes were the second deadliest natural disaster type in the OIC countries group with around 8 thousand deaths in the same period.

As to the economic cost of natural disasters, the Report underlines that the cost of damages associated with natural disasters in the OIC countries group decreased from 60 billion USD in the period 1991-2000 to 42 billion USD in the period 2011-2020. In the period 2011-2020, the cost of damages due to floods (27 billion USD - 65% of the total cost of natural disaster damages) was highest when compared to other natural disaster types. It was followed by the costs caused by earthquakes (8 billion USD - 18% of the total cost of natural disaster damages).

Online Electronic Version

  • OIC Statistical Outlook 2021: Cost of Natural Disasters in OIC Member Countries (English)