Natural Disasters and Household Welfare : Evidence from Vietnam

Thomas, Timothy ; Christiaensen, Luc ; Do, Quy Toan ; Trung, Le Dang

关键词: ADAPTATION;    AGRICULTURAL DROUGHT;    AGRICULTURAL DROUGHTS;    ANISOTROPY;    BANKS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5491
RP-ID  :  WPS5491

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

As natural disasters hit with increasingfrequency, especially in coastal areas, it is imperative tobetter understand how much natural disasters affecteconomies and their people. This requires disaggregatedmeasures of natural disasters that can be reliably linked tohouseholds, the first challenge this paper tackles. Inparticular, a methodology is illustrated to create naturaldisaster and hazard maps from first hand, geo-referencedmeteorological data. In a second step, the repeatedcross-sectional national living standard measurement surveys(2002, 2004, and 2006) from Vietnam are augmented with thenatural disaster measures derived in the first phase, toestimate the welfare effects associated with naturaldisasters. The results indicate that short-run losses fromnatural disasters can be substantial, with riverine floodscausing welfare losses of up to 23 percent and hurricanesreducing welfare by up to 52 percent inside cities with apopulation over 500,000. Households are better able to copewith the short-run effects of droughts, largely due toirrigation. There are also important long-run negativeeffects, in Vietnam mostly so for droughts, flash floods,and hurricanes. Geographical differentiation in the welfareeffects across space and disaster appears partly linked tothe functioning of the disaster relief system, which has sofar largely eluded households in areas regularly affected byhurricane force winds.