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| Titel |
What is the cost of a life in a disaster? - Examples, Practice and Global Analysis |
| VerfasserIn |
James Daniell, Tina Kunz-Plapp, Andreas Schaefer, Friedemann Wenzel, Bijan Khazai |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250102553
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-1882.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| An analysis is presented based on historical evidence and global exposure metrics using the CATDAT Socioeconomic databases, in order to create a global distribution of the cost of life in a disaster using various metrics. Casualty insurance models require a value of life & mitigation and cost-benefit studies require a value of life in order to make decisions and set premiums. Although this is a contentious concept, there are two general approaches to human life costing: the first is based on human capital which looks at the production capacity and potential output as a proxy for future earning; the second looks at willingness to pay which estimates people’s value on reducing risk and compensation payouts. A combination approach is used.
For each of the 245 nations, a value of life is estimated using the following parameters:-
(1) Age of people in a country using the life expectancy and distribution data in CATDAT
(2) Output of the economy and wage distribution
(3) Household and community interactions
(4) Lost quality of life
The range of statistical life costs are examined globally from different sources, with the range of a life value being from $10,000 up to in the order of $10 million between different countries.
The difference of the cost for a fatality vs. that of a severe injury is also discussed with a severe injury often having higher costs than a fatality for loss purposes. The losses in terms of historical disasters are looked at and examined with the percentage of life cost shown as a proportion of total losses. The losses of a future major earthquake in a low seismicity region show some of the largest potential life cost losses with that of a M6.8 in Adelaide, Australia; having around $160 billion in life costs (25,000 deaths, 15,000 severe injuries).
This study has benefits post-disaster for quantification of human capital losses in major disasters, and pre-disaster for the analysis of insurance and mitigation options. |
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