{"id":523,"date":"2014-10-13T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blogs\/?p=523"},"modified":"2017-07-25T09:17:40","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:17:40","slug":"natural-disasters-a-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/natural-disasters-a-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural disasters: A new normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit: Victor Zastolskiy\/Shutterstock.\u00a0<\/em>We are living in a period where a \u201cnew normal\u201d is being created in climate. In 1980, overall capital losses from natural disasters were approximately $60 billion; by 2010, the capital losses have trended to over $200 billion per year. Said another way, the losses from disasters have exceeded $2.5 trillion since January 1, 2000 \u2014 a staggering $16.2 million per hour!\u00a0 To make a bad situation even worse, over 75% of these losses were uninsured.<\/p>\n

Another measure is loss events.\u00a0 In 1980, there were approximately 350 disaster events.\u00a0 By 2013, the total number of events increased to nearly 900 per year! The increase occurred from meteorological or hydrologic events. Progress has been made in reducing fatalities from disasters; however, the impact of these capital losses is of great concern.<\/p>\n

There is a saying that \u201ca wise person learns from the mistakes of others, while a fool learns from their own mistakes.\u201d The frequency and intensity of natural disasters is increasing, and we may not necessarily agree as to why. Coupled with this increase in events is the migration of people to urban areas; in 1913, only 10% of the world\u2019s population lived in cities.\u00a0 Today, over 50% of the world\u2019s populations reside in urban areas, and this percentage is projected to increase to 70% by 2050. Cities are the \u201cheart beat\u201d of modern society. Consequently, it is paramount that we improve resiliency in our cities.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>A woman carries an elderly woman on her back after the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Minami-Sanriku-cho, a town located in Miyagi Prefecture, is unrecognizable. Credit: The Kahoku Shimpo.<\/em><\/p>\n

ArchTam has been active in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) since 2011 with a focus on building the business case for private-sector engagement in building infrastructure resilience.\u00a0 The UNISDR seeks to increase awareness of the increasing trend in natural disasters to improve planning for these events, achieve more effective response actions, and accelerate community recovery after these events.<\/p>\n

It has been reported that $1 in planning can save $7 to $10 in response cost.\u00a0 As vice chair of the U.N. Private Sector Advisory Group, I have worked to build more public\/private sector engagement in disaster risk reduction. With IBM, ArchTam created a Disaster Resilience Scorecard (DRS) that is used by cities to establish a benchmark of preparedness, which then can be used to develop a multi-year resiliency improvement plan. \u00a0The DRS is an algorithm of 81 questions built around the \u201cTen Essentials\u201d in the U.N. \u00a0\u201cMaking Cities Resilient<\/a>\u201d campaign. ArchTam has participated in public\/private sector workshops in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and in North America.<\/p>\n

As I write this blog, I am at a public\/private sector meeting hosted by the Wal-Mart Foundation discussing disaster risk sensitive investments with over 50 senior officials. Yes, there is much to do to build resilience in our communities but all great journeys begin with a single step.<\/p>\n

I close this blog with a notable quote attributed to our Gary Lawrence, ArchTam chief sustainability officer, at the U.N. New York meetings last week: \u201cOur company will never be the dark specter feeding on the misery of people in the aftermath of disasters. We\u2019re about improving human lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dale's_Portrait_89x100\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dale Sands is <\/em>senior vice president and global practice director for ArchTam\u2019s environment business line. With more than 30 years of environmental management experience, Dale has lived or worked in more than 50 countries.
\nLinkedIn: Dale Sands<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: Victor Zastolskiy\/Shutterstock.\u00a0We are living in a period where a \u201cnew normal\u201d is being created in climate. In 1980, overall capital losses from natural disasters were approximately $60 billion; by 2010, the capital losses have trended to over $200 billion per year. Said another way, the losses from disasters have exceeded $2.5 trillion since January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[90,138,89,91],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-and-resiliency","tag-cities","tag-impact","tag-natural-disasters","tag-united-nations"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}