Development of Gross National Safety Index for Natural Disasters

Abstract

After the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, it appeared that Japan was extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and lack of adequate social systems for mitigating natural disasters. The authors advocated a need for the development of safety index systems for natural disasters for policy makers and decision makers to prioritize mitigation measures to be implemented. The World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe in 2005 adopted the Hyogo Framework for Action, which clearly states the urgent need for developing vulnerability index. An extensive literature survey was firstly conducted to find out the State of the Art regarding to the development of systems of indicators of disaster risk and vulnerability at national and sub-national scale. The survey indicates that the system of indicators such as World Risk Index (WRI) is widely accepted. By modifying the WRI index, a new index named GNS (Gross National Safety for natural disasters) was developed in this study. Risk in GNS is defined by Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability. Five natural events are considered in 2015 version of GNS, including earthquake, tsunami, storm surge, sediment related disaster event, and volcanic activity. An initial calculation was carried out by using various big data available open to public. The results of disaster risk and vulnerability are presented in the prefectural scale in Japan. Our intension is not to provide the ranking of GNS but to offer the policy and decision makers a piece of scientific information for selecting highest priority measures for mitigation in a rational manner. A few commentary remark is added to include the impact of climate change on natural disasters in the safety index system.