Tropical cyclone hazard assessment in the Northwest Pacific

The North Atlantic is currently the best researched area worldwide with regard to the hurricane hazard it represents. Not least due to the high losses caused by Hurricanes "Hugo" (1989) and "Andrew" (1992), the insurance industry has in the last few years made extensive efforts to gain a better understanding of potential losses and the probability of occurrence of such losses.

Other regions have been much less the focus of scientific research, although in Japan Typhoon "Mireille" (1991) was responsible for over US$ 5 billion in insured losses alone.

The studies presented include windstorm hazard assessments and vulnerability estimates for two significant economic areas in the Northwest Pacific (Japan and Hong Kong). It is shown that in these regions the loss potential from tropical windstorms is in the same order of magnitude to that in the USA.

It is also demonstrated in this connection that meteorological hazard assessment and wind engineering are still lagging far behind earthquake risk analysis, which has been well established over many years. In contrast to earthquakes, windstorms and meteorological events in general are by many not regarded as a threat to existence. The loss statistics of the last 50 years (1950-1999) paint an altogether different picture:

Economic losses from "great natural catastrophes" 1950-1999: USD 960 billion Economic losses from earthquakes 1950-1999 : USD 340 billion Economic losses from windstorms and flooding 1950-1999 : USD 554 billion Remainder from other perils (date: October 1999; worldwide data, source: MRNatCatService)