New Delhi: The number of people globally impacted by tropical cyclones has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2019, reaching nearly 800 million, according to a study. While more people are affected by tropical cyclones in Asia than any other region, every affected area saw an increase in the number of people exposed to tropical cyclones, which are expected to become more intense and possibly more frequent as the climate warms, the researchers said.
"Although our study period is not sufficiently long to understand long-term trends, we observe a steady increase in both population and person-days exposure for all storm intensities in the past two decades," said Renzhi Jing, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, US. The age distribution of those exposed to cyclones has shifted away from children under the age of 5 towards people who are aged 60 and older compared to the early 2000s, tracking with population trends in the regions most affected.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, also found that people exposed to tropical cyclones are more socioeconomically deprived than those unexposed within the same country, and this relationship was more pronounced for people exposed to higher-intensity storms during the study period, which was from 2002 through 2019.
Researchers say that characterising the patterns and vulnerabilities of exposed populations can help identify mitigation strategies, and assess the global burden and future risks of tropical cyclones. "The increased exposure to cyclones is attributed more to changes in tropical cyclone weather patterns than to population growth," said Zachary Wagner, senior author of the study and an economist at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.
