The Caribbean area is prone to strong climate hazards such as storms and hurricanes. How do these densely-populated territories cope with risk? Does demographic growth worsen the impact of natural disasters? In spite of comparable hazard levels, the impacts of these phenomena are quite different depending on the characteristics of the affected society. This analysis therefore compares the impacts of three different disasters that affected three different territories, namely Jeanne storm in Haiti (September 2004), hurricane Wilma in Florida (US, October 2005) and hurricane Katrina in Louisiana (US, August-September 2005).
As a relatively moderate hazard had a very severe impact on a poor nation such as Haiti, which population is not well-prepared to face risk and which government is in disarray when a much stronger hazard had very limited impact on Florida, we clearly see how important societies’ vulnerability is. Even within a same country, particularly when it has decentralized organization such as the United States of America, population and government’s response to hazards greatly vary, leading to very different impacts. The organization of society and governance therefore appear as major issues to understand how hazards affect a territory.
地表过程与资源生态国家重点实验室
减灾与应急管理研究院
