Belarus is exposed to several geophysical and climate-related hazards, some of which are increasing in frequency and magnitude. Climate change is contributing to many of the natural disasters outlined below and may likely continue to exacerbate them. Hence, there is a need to enhance and improve early warning and prevention systems for natural disasters and to develop effective disaster management strategies.
This section provides a summary of key natural hazards and their associated socioeconomic impacts in a given country. And it allows quick evaluation of most vulnerable areas through the spatial comparison of natural hazard data with development data, thereby identifying exposed livelihoods and natural systems.
The charts provide overview of the most frequent natural disaster in a given country and understand the impacts of those disasters on human populations.
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Climate change is now recognized to have a significant impact on disaster management efforts and pose a significant threat to the efforts to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable populations. The demands of disaster risk management are such that concise, clear, and reliable information is crucial. The information presented here offers insight into the frequency, impact and occurrence of natural hazards. Source (PDF)
Understanding natural hazard occurrence as well as historical climate conditions, in relation to development contexts, is critical to understanding a country’s historical vulnerability. This tool allows the visualization of different natural hazards or historical climate conditions with socio-economic and development datasets. Select the Development Context and either a Natural Hazard or Climate Condition and overlay horizontally by sliding the toggle left or right to gain a broader sense of historically vulnerable areas.
Data presented under Historical Climate Conditions are reanalysis products derived from ERA5-Land data. ERA5-Land is a global land-surface dataset at 9 km resolution, consistent with atmospheric data from the ERA5 reanalysis from 1950 onward. Climate reanalyses combine past observations with models to generate consistent time series of multiple climate variables. They provide a comprehensive description of the observed climate as it has evolved during recent decades, on 3D grids at sub-daily intervals.
This data has been collected, aggregated and processed by the Climate Resilience Cluster of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative.
- Earthquake hazards is classified as ‘moderate’, meaning that there is a 10% chance of potentially-damaging earthquake shaking Belarus in the next 50 years. The hazard level is highest in the southeast regions.
- River flood hazard is classified as ‘high’, meaning that potentially damaging and life-threatening river floods are expected to occur at least once in Belarus in the next 10 years. The hazard level is highest in central to southern and western regions. Major flooding events during the 1990s affected large numbers of people and caused damage to infrastructure and agricultural areas. River flood hazard level may increase due to more frequent and intense precipitation days in winter and an increase in the number of extreme rainfall events9. Flooding is regarded as the greatest natural hazard in Belarus.
- Water scarcity hazard is classified as ‘moderate’, meaning that there is up to a 20% chance droughts will occur in Belarus in the coming 10 years. The hazard level is highest in central to eastern, southern and western regions.
- Forest fire risks are increased by high temperature and dry conditions. In 2006, 3,252 fires were recorded in Belarus, effecting an area of more than 2,500 hectares.
More information on natural hazards can be found at ThinkHazard.