Ranking 5th among countries with the highest economic risk exposure to three or more hazards, 83.3% of Guatemala’s gross domestic product is located in at-risk areas. The country also ranks in the top five countries in the world most affected by floods, hurricanes and earthquakes, with 40.8% of the population exposed to five or more threats simultaneously. Exposure in Guatemala is to both low frequency and high impact events, such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes, and to high frequency and low impact events, such as floods and landslides.
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.