Description: The challenges to reducing flood risk in South Asia were highlighted by the August 2010 floods in Pakistan, which killed approximately 1 700 people and caused US$9.7 billion in damage to infrastructure, farms and homes, as well as other direct and indirect losses (ADB/World Bank, 2010). The map contrasts the areas that actually flooded with those areas that the UNISDR GAR 2009 risk model redicted would be flooded during a 1-in-100-year flood (Herold and Mouton, 2011). As with any flood, some areas the model predicted would flood were spared, and some flooded areas were not captured by the model. The flooding was concentrated in rural areas with rapidly growing populations that lacked a prominent political voice—risk factors that contributed to the high mortality. The risk model also predicted a mortality rate approximately four times higher than that reported, suggesting the reduction in flood mortality in South Asia described earlier may be conservative. That the risk could be modelled at all highlights that this was not an unexpected disaster.
Published in: 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction - Revealing Risk, Redefining Development
Copyright © United Nations 2011. All Rights Reserved.
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