Revealing the Impact of Small Disasters to the Economic and Social Development

Abstract

This chapter presents the results of the evaluation of the proneness of Colombia to small scale and chronic disasters, and the type of impact they have for the local and country development. This analysis detected the spatial variability and dispersion of vulnerability and risk in the country because of events that rarely enter the international or even national disaster databases. But these events pose an accumulative development problem for local areas and, given their overall probable impacts, for the country as a whole. First, the database of small disasters used is described to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the available data and how that information was prepared for this research. A conceptual framework regarding the impact of small disasters is then presented, to characterize the risk associated to this type of disasters together with a quantification of their effects and their economic costs in order to illustrate their relevance due to the accumulated impact and recurrence. Finally, the conclusions of the study are given, which identify new risk concepts: The concept of ‘intensive risk’ to refer to the concentrated risk manifesting infrequently in specific locations, and the concept of ‘extensive risk’ to refer to the diffuse risk manifesting frequently over wide territories.