Global development, rather than increasing hazards, is the key driver of rising disaster losses, according to AIR Worldwide.

The catastrophe modeller unveiled initial findings of a new study last week at the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan.

The research analysed losses from natural catastrophes over the past 20 years and noted that while there was wide variation, there was a trend of increasing disasters and losses.

The data was then normalised – with every historical disaster assumed to have taken place in today’s world, with the current population and number and location of properties.

Under this model the increasing trend disappeared, and the graph oscillated around a common figure of about $US240 billion ($314 billion) per year.

“The development of the world – in other words the world getting richer, building more buildings and putting them more in harm’s way – is a stronger driver of increasing economic losses than hazards,” Director of International Operations Milan Simic told the conference.

Jerry Velasquez, Chief of Advocacy and Outreach at the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), says the findings can help stop the trend of increasing losses.

“If we don’t do anything the trend will continue upwards,” he said. “We want a flat line.

“The driver we need to address is the increasing population, increasing wealth of the population, the increasing number of properties and increasing value of properties.

“In 15 years, to come back and say we have achieved the target, we need to have improved urban planning massively, to control the creation of new risks.”

Wealth and growth is desirable, he says, but it must be resilient.

“We have to target the cities that are going to be growing, the medium-size cities of the world that will become mega-cities in 15 years.”

The full findings of the study, carried out in conjunction with the UNISDR, will be released in July.