FACTBOX-U.N. natural disaster risk assessment

May 17 - The United Nations published a landmark report on Sunday about how natural disasters threaten lives and livelihoods around the world. Following are the main findings of that report:

DAMAGE FROM LARGE AND SMALL DISASTERS

* Since 1975, 23 mega-disasters have killed 1.7 million people, mainly in poor countries. Some 80 percent of disaster-related deaths resulted from just 0.26 percent of recorded events.

* Low-intensity damage to housing, local infrastructure, crops and livestock is extensive and occurs very frequently. In a sample of 12 countries in Asia and Latin America, there were 126,620 reports of municipal-level damage since 1970, implying an average of nine disasters per day.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES MOST AFFECTED

* Small island developing states and land-locked developing countries account for 60 percent of nations considered to have high economic vulnerability to disasters, and 67 percent of nations considered to have very high economic vulnerability.

* The poorest communities in developing countries are at highest risk from disasters, and are rarely covered by insurance or receive social protection.

* Mortality risk from tropical cyclones is about 200 times higher in low-income countries than in rich nations that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In South Asia, floods cause 15 times more economic losses as a proportion of GDP than in OECD countries.

CLIMATE CHANGE BOOSTS RISK

* Climate change magnifies the uneven distribution of disaster risk, skewing disaster impacts even further towards poor communities in developing countries.

* The incidence of weather-related municipal damage has doubled since 1980, with damage to housing increasing five-fold.

* The number of loss reports associated with flooding and heavy rains is increasing faster than other hazards. In Costa Rica, for example, these have at least quintupled since 1990.

* It is likely that climate change is already contributing to the increase in weather-related loss reports seen since 1980, but it is not yet possible to calculate how much.

(For more information about disaster risk reduction, see: http://www.alertnet.org/db/topics/disasterreduction.htm) (For the full ISDR report, see: www.unisdr.org)