Dead planet, living planet

ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION FOR DISASTER PREVENTION AND MITIGATION Ecosystems play a crucial role in reducing, mitigating and avoiding major hazards and di- sasters worldwide – while their destruction and degradation may both exacerbate or even cause catastrophes: Every year 270 million people in the world, 85% of them in Aisa are exposed to natural disasters and some 124 000 people are directly or indirectly killed.

Natural ecosystems that help prevent disasters include natu- ral vegetation and forests on slopes and hill sides and catch- ment forests hindering erosion and slowing passage of water from rainfall (Zhao et al ., 2009), wetlands providing buffers for floods (Costanza et al ., 2008), riparian zones influencing wa- ter chemistry (Dosskey et al ., 2010); mangroves and coral reefs for waves, tsunamis and storms (Badola and Hussain, 2005; UNEP, 2007; 2009), vegetation in drylands hindering erosion (UNEP, 2006; Lal, 2009), forests and mangroves in estuar- ies buffering flood effects (Tallis et al ., 2008) not to mention the function of ecosystems in buffering further land degrada- tion and providing live-able conditions for people and animals worldwide by protecting the local climate. The value of coastal wetlands for hurricane protection has been estimated at 250–51,000 USD/ha/year, with an average of 8240 USD/ha/year, with coastal wetlands in the US current- ly providing storm protection services valued at 23.32 billion USD annually (Costanza et al ., 2008). Mangroves have been estimated to reduce damage of storm floods to impoverished by an average of 33.31 USD/household compared to unprotect- ed villages with damages over 153.74 USD/household (Badola and Hussain, 2005). Potential damage from storms, coastal and inland flooding and landslides can be considerably reduced by a combination of careful land use planning and maintaining/restoring ecosys-

tems to enhance buffering capacity. Planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves cost USD 1.1 million but saved annual expenditures on dyke maintenance of USD 7.3 million.(Tallis et al ., 2008; TEEB, 2009).

Table 2: Number of people affected by natural disasters in Asia (row 1–4) and the world (row 5) 1998–2008

No. affected/year

Type of disaster Flash floods Seasonal floods Droughts All natural hazards WORLD

No. killed/year 5000 4000 30 000 100 000 ca. 124 000

100 000 000 80 000 000 230 000 000 ca. 270 000 000

Source: FAO 2001, Benniston 2003, Jianchu et al . 2007, USAID 2007, UNU-IAS 2008, Eriksson et al . 2009 a, b. ICIMOD 2009, Pacific Disaster Center 2009, World Disaster Report 2009.

Table 3: Relative vulnerability to floods across continents (1998– 2008) (World Disaster Report 2009)

Africa 22 173 000 7623

Americas 14 315 000 38 281

Asia 801 634 000 38 735

Europe 1 273 000 1245

Affected Killed

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