Estimating populations affected by disasters : A review of methodological issues and research gaps

In the last ten years, a total of 3,583 disasters occurred, over four times the number in the 1970 -79 decade. Nearly 85% of these occurred in Asia and in total they affected about 1.7 billion people again, mostly in Asia. These affected people include mainly those who are immediately and directly affected by the event. To what extent these estimates include those that are more indirectly affected such as those permanently disabled due to sustained injuries , orphaned and motherless children who are at higher risk of mortality or large numbers forced away from their homes to settle and inflate populations in nearby city slums – is less well known. Convincing evidence on the mechanisms by which these disasters actually affect household, communities and the knock on effects on key social processes such as rural-urban migration, entrenched malnutrition is a major gap.