Exposure and vulnerability to natural disasters for world's cities

This paper aims to investigate exposure and vulnerability to natural disasters for cities with 300,000 inhabitants or more in 2018. The report uses data from the 2018 revision of World Urbanization Prospects, the spatial hotspot data on exposure and vulnerability to natural disasters, as well as sources for estimating the urban extent of each city and for the classification of coastal and inland cities. The 2018 revision of World Urbanization Prospects includes estimates and projections for 1,860 urban agglomerations with 300,000 inhabitants or more as of mid-2018. The spatial hotspot data, produced by Columbia University and the World Bank, includes information for six types of disaster, that is, cyclones, floods, droughts, earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions. Based on these data, the paper examines exposure of the 1,860 cities to the six types of disaster and the vulnerability to disaster-related mortality and economic losses. Variations in exposure to risk of and vulnerability to natural disasters across city sizes, development groups, Sustainable Development Goals region and income groups are also presented. The present study seeks to inform urban planners and policy makers about the need to strengthen resilience, improve preparedness, and adapt strategies of cities to address the effects of natural disasters with a view to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.