EM-DAT Disaster Database Analysis

EM-DAT, the Emergency Events Database maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at UCLouvain, is the most widely used global compilation of disaster occurrence and impact, and its analysis is a standard empirical method in disaster studies. The database records mass disasters from 1900 to the present according to explicit entry criteria, classifies each event by a natural or technological hazard taxonomy, and captures human and economic impacts — deaths, people affected, and damage. Analyzing EM-DAT means querying these records, adjusting economic losses for inflation and exposure, normalizing human impacts by population, and examining trends and patterns across hazard types, regions, and time. Because the data carry known inclusion thresholds and reporting biases, rigorous EM-DAT analysis is as much about understanding what the database can and cannot say as about the statistics themselves.