Disaster Data
The EU Joint Research Centre has just built a dataset that covers over 3,000 disaster events across 175 countries between 2014 and 2024, spanning 26 disaster types and accounting for around 80% of global economic losses.
The collection of Disaster data is not new. The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) contains 30,000+ disasters from 1900 to present.
Where the new dataset differs is in the use of global news data about the disasters to add a narrative and context to the event.
It helps see the connection between events. Heavy rainfall causes flooding, but it can also disrupt transport networks, damage crops, and trigger disease outbreaks.
The team track hundreds of thousands of news sources worldwide then distil each event into a structured “storyline”: a summary of what happened, who was affected, what caused the crisis, and how it was managed.
An interactive dashboard lets anyone explore directly the disaster storylines and knowledge graphs.
SOURCE
INTERACTIVE DASHBOARD
