Table 3.

Characteristics of global and regional disaster databases

Spatial coverage	Global				Regional DesInventar
	NatCatSERVICE	EM-DAT	Sigma	GLIDE
Threshold to record	The occurrence of human injury (loss of life, injury, homelessness) or property damage	One of the following criteria must be fulfilled: (1) 10 or more human deaths, (2) 100 or more people affected/injured/homeless, (3) declaration by the country of a state of emergency and/or an appeal for international assistance	For the 2016 reporting year - insured losses: 19.9 million USD for maritime disasters, 39.8 million USD for aviation, 49.5 million USD for other losses, or economic losses: 99 million USD or Casualties: 20 dead or missing, 50 injured, 2000 homeless	≥10 fatalities, ≥100 affected, declaration of the state of emergency, or call for international assistance	All disasters (one or more human losses or one or more dollars of economic losses)
Data quality control	Database owner	Database owner	Database owner	Database owner	Varies by country (governments, NGOs, or research institutes)
Spatial resolution	Country	Country	Country	Country	The minimum level of geographic resolution
Temporal coverage	79 AD-present	1900-present	1970-present	1930-present	Varies by country
Data sources	Property claims service, insurance clients, UN agencies, World Bank, press, academia, etc.	UN agencies, IFRC, World Bank, reinsurers, press, news agencies, etc.	Property claims service, insurance clients, UN agencies, World Bank, press, academia, etc.	UN agencies, IFRC, World Bank, reinsurers, press, news agencies, etc.	UN agencies, weather services, geological services, press, etc.
Audience	The general public, the insurance industry	Humanitarian community, academia	The general public, the insurance industry	Loss database operators	Emergency management, hazard mitigation planning, academia
Owner	Munich Re, Germany	Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium	Swiss Re, Austria	Asian Disaster Reduction Center, Japan	Varies by country
Advantage	Reliable information on insured losses	Actively and continuously maintained	Reliable information on insured losses	This database collaborates between CRED, ISDR, UNDP, La Red/DesInventar, and others	Widely used tool - Human losses are disaggregated into deaths, injured, affected, homeless
	Graphics can be obtained based on the statistical data by clicking	Human losses are disaggregated into deaths, injured, affected, homeless Data are to be stored in a uniform format	Graphics can be obtained based on the statistical data by clicking
		The threshold to record is clear		The GLIDE database generates a unique identifier for each disaster event to link loss information and to advance event and data comparability between databases	Data are to be stored by each country in a uniform format developed to record disaggregated data.
		Users can download the dataset itself
					UNISDR encourages countries to use DesInventar in implementing the SFDRR
					Users can download the dataset itself

NatCatSERVICE=Natural catastrophe services, GLIDE=Global unique disaster identifier, EM-DAT=Emergency events database, IFRC=International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, USD=US Dollar, CRED=Center for research on the epidemiology of disasters, ISDR=International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, UNDP=United nations development programme