Overall risks from climate-related impacts are evaluated based on the interaction of climate-related hazards (including hazardous events and trends) with the vulnerability of communities (susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to adapt), and exposure of human and natural systems. Changes in both the climate system and socioeconomic processes -including adaptation and mitigation actions- are drivers of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability (IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, 2014).
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.
- The major natural disasters that occur in Grenada are storms and hurricanes.
- There is also a risk of landslides during the annual rainy season in the mountain regions.
- In addition, storm surge is problematic in the coastal area either through localized flooding in low reaches or through cliff side erosion. Flood in Grenada is mostly associated with storm surge in low coastal areas.
- Hurricane Ivan struck Grenada in September of 2004, causing severe damages. Approximately 8,000-10,000 people were left homeless. 90% of the buildings were destroyed. The overall damage was estimated to be as high as 2.5 times of the GDP.
More information on natural hazards can be found at ThinkHazard.
- Climate Change models project that Caribbean islands are expected to undergo a warming and drying trend and to endure more frequent heat waves and droughts, rainfalls with increased intensity, and rising sea levels .
- A study projects the potential costs of inaction for several Caribbean islands based on an optimistic (low impact, reduced emissions) and a pessimistic scenario (business as usual) . For Grenada, inaction would cost about 21% of the current GDP by 2025, 46% by 2050, 76% by 2075 and 111% by 2100.
- Future changes in the sea surface temperature caused by climate change could increase the intensity of cyclones and heighten storm surges. Climate Change models project that Caribbean islands are expected to undergo a warming and drying trend and to endure more frequent heat waves and droughts, rainfalls with increased intensity, and rising sea levels. With severe economic consequences.
- Implementation of further actions to reduce the level of vulnerability is severely constrained by the lack of capacity, human resources, technology, financial resources, data, knowledge and awareness.
- It is important to make use of existing new and emerging technologies such as early warning systems to reduce the impact of extreme events.
- Grenada is currently undertaking its technology needs assessments (TNA) and has selected the water, agriculture and tourism as the focal sectors.