Natural and Environmental Disasters

Institutions: Caribbean

ACS Special group on Natural Disasters
BVI Disaster Management Agency
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency(CDERA)
A comprehensive source of information on disaster management in the Caribbean and on the activities of CDERA and the National Disaster Organisations (NDOs) of Participating States.
Caribbean Disaster Information Network
Caribban Hurricane Network
Information site with a strong tourism orientation, island specific bulletin boards
Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology
Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project
The Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project was was executed from September 1993 to December 1999. The web site remains active as a repository for project documentation and publications.
Central Emergency Relief Organisation (Barbados)
Earthquake Unit, UWI Mona
Montserrat Volcano Observatory
National Emergency Management Organition, Belize
National Emergency Relief Organization (NERO), Grenada
Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management - Jamaica
Saint Lucia National Disaster Coordinator's Home Page
Website not recently updated
Seismic Research Unit, Trinidad and Tobago
Soufriere, Montserrat
Updates on the Soufriere volcano in Montserrat with a link to the Montserrat Volcano Observatory
STIRANA
Stichting Rampenbestrijding en Brandweerzorg Nederlandse Antillen. National Disaster Organization, Netherlands Antilles
Unit for Disaster Studies
Based at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus

Institutions: Other

AOML Hurricane Research Division
The Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre
Center for Integration of Natural Disaster Information
Disaster links
Disaster Relief
Disaster Info Desastres
Info site on American and Caribbean disasters
Echo
European Community Humanitarian Office
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies"
Environmental and Societal Impacts Group
EPIX
Emergency Preparedness and Information Exchange.
FAO Special Relief Operations Service
FEMA GEMS
Global Emergency Management System is an online, searchable database containing links to Websites in a variety of categories that are related in some way to emergency management
International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction
Programme now closed and succeeded by UNISDR, but website still active
National Hurricane Center
Natural Hazard Center Univerity of Colorado
OAS Natural Hazards Project
PAHO
Extensive, includes Disasters: Preparedness and Mitigation in the Americas, a quarterly newsletter of PAHO's Emergency Preparedness Program.
ReliefWeb
Disaster response information on current natural disasters and archival material dating back to 1981, listed chronologically
Tropical Meteorology Project
Includes professor Gray's hurricane forecasts
UN ISDR
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. The successor to IDNDR
US Geoligical Service Earthquake Page
Volcanic Ash Advisory Service
World Bank Disaster Management Facility

Primers

Earthquake Information
FAQ Hurricanes
The Volcano Information Center
Volcano World
Sub-marine volcanoes

Substantive: Caribbean

CDMP Publications
The CDMP project has produced a large body of country and subject specific literature directly pertaining to the Caribbean.
Damage Investigation: Puerto Rico
Survey of damage to the island following hurricane Georges
Early Response to Hurricane Marilyn in the U.S. Virgin Islands
Hurricane Keith
Reports on the impact of hurricane Keith
Hurricane Keith: Our Recovery Management Strategy
Government of Belize, 2000
Managing Catastrophic Risks Using Alternative Risk Financing & Insurance Pooling Mechanisms
Executive summary, full document in pdf format. World Bank, 2000

Coral Reefs: Volcanic Impacts
Impact on Montserrat
CSI
Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands: Caribbean
Communicating hurricane preparedness for agriculture, forestry and fisheries in the Caribbean. FAO 1999.
República Dominicana: Evaluación de los daños ocasionados por el Huracán Georges
ECLAC LC/MEX/L.365 1998. Document in pdf format

Belize. Assessment of the Damage Caused by Hurricane Keith, 2000. ECLAC.
Hurricanes Mitch & Georges:From Relief to Recovery
Executive summary, country reports on Dominican Republic, Eastern Caribbean and Haiti
An OECS Catastophe Facility. Do We Need One
Garth P Nicholls, ECCB September 1995

Substantive: Socio-economic

Disaster Assessment in the Subregion: ECLAC's Methodology.
Brief presentation of the disaster assessment methodologies developed by ECLAC.
Manual for Estimating the Socio-Economic Effects of Natural Disasters
ECLAC, 1999
ECLAC Disaster Assessments
A wide range of assessments carried out by ECLAC. Full text in pdf format, summary in html.
Guy Carpenter Publications
(Re)Insurance issues
The Socioeconomic Aspects of Flooding in the U.S.: A Topical Bibliography
Temporal Fluctuations in Weather and Climate Extremes That Cause Economic and Human Health Impacts: A Review.
Review by Kunkel, K., R. A. Pielke Jr., S. A. Changnon, 1999 in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80, 6, 1077-1098. Document in pdf format
Extreme Weather Source Book
Economic Losses Related to Floods, Tornadoes and Hurricanes in the United States
Workshop on the economic and social impacts of weather
Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-1995
Societal Aspects of Weather
Economic and Social Effects of El Niño in Ecuador
12/99, POV-107, IADB
Hurricane Mitch: Women's Needs and Contributions
Document in pdf format, summary in html. (12/99, SOC-115, E, S) IADB, 1999.

Substantive: Other

FAO and El Niño
impacts of the 1997/98
Facing the Challenge of Natural Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean: An IDB Action Plan.
Document in pdf format. IDB 2000
Un tema del desarrollo: La reducción de la vulnerabilidad frente a los desastres.
IADB/ECLAC
A Matter of Development: How to Reduce Vulnerability in the Face of Natural Disasters
IADB/ECLAC
Reducing Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Mitch
Climate trends associated with multi-decadal variability in Atlantic hurricane activity.
Hurricane Camille
Thirty Years After Hurricane Camille: Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost
Atlantic basin hurricanes: Indices of climatic changes
Article from Climatic Change, 42: 89-129, (1999)
Quick response reports
Has a few Caribbean island reports
Tropical Cyclones and Global Climate Change: A Post-IPCC Assessment
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 79, 19-38, (1998)
Market Incentives for Mitigation Investment
Past hurricane season summaries.
Reports of annual hurricane seasons, 1988 onwards.
Hemispheric Congress on Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development
This site contains two documents produced by the Hemispheric Congress on Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development: The Miami Declaration on Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development, and A Strategic Plan of Action.
Natural and Environmental disasters
Chapter II of the SIDS Programme of Action

(Oil)Pollution disasters plans
(Oil) and other pollution disaster plans can be found in this section
Natural and Environmental Disasters in SIDS
Management of natural and environmental disasters in small island developing States. Report of the Secretary General. E/CN.17/1996/20/Add.1. United Nations, New York, 1996.
Natural and environmental disasters
Addendum to the SG Report on the Barbados Programme of Action - Natural and Environmental Disasters (E/CN.17/1999/6/Add.13) In pdf format
Yokohama Strategy for a Safer World
Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation. Full text of The World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction (Yokohama, 23-27 May 1994)
Planning for a Safer World in the 21st Century

Data

EM-DAT
The CRED/OFDA International Disaster database. Caribbean regional and national data on wide range of natural disasters
Hurricane track data 1886 onwards
Descriptive database storms in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
World weather events 1991 onwards

Maps

Hurricane tracks 1921 onwards
Historical tracks
Island and sub-region specific tracks 19th century onwards

Last updated June, 2001