The New York Times

J. Adam Huggins for the International Herald Tribune

It’s becoming increasingly evident that the path toward more or less 9 billion people will see terrible losses in inevitable disasters. The United Nations has been making the case for more proactive efforts under the rubic of “disaster-risk reduction” since the world’s nations proclaimed the 1990’s the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. I touched on this shortly after the tsunami swept the Indian Ocean, in a piece called “ The Future of Calamity.”

A new global assessment of countries’ exposure to hazards and efforts to limit losses is being released at a conference in Bahrain on Sunday. I have a news story that provides highlights, but the 200-page document itself, the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, is worth a deep dive.

Some experts on disaster preparation aren’t happy with some aspects of the report, and many feel there’s little substance behind international pledges to cut risks. But many told me this report is still a helpful window on the outsize vulnerability of a few places on the planet where the costs of calamity are highest. A prime factor contributing to increased vulnerability is urbanization, with about one billion people already crammed into what are euphemistically called “informal” settlements in and around cities, better known as slums, and 25 million more moving in each year. These communities are usually built on steep slopes, floodplains or other vulnerable spots. Another is ecological damage, like the loss of mangroves in Myanmar that appears to have allowed the flood surge there to propagate inland more readily. The report projects that human-caused climate change will progressively tip the odds toward more trouble. But it stresses that increasing resilience to disasters can help limit climate risks, as well, even as it reduces poverty and potentially boosts global security.

I’ll be adding some experts’ perspectives on the report in the comment space below as they come in. Here’s a video produced by the United Nations summarizing what officials there see as the main points (UPDATE: some disaster experts are upset about several aspects of the video; see Ben Wisner comment below):