Natural Disasters through the Ages
Conveying a global increase in the impact of natural disasters.
Living in the modern world means being part of a hyper-connected environment. With almost instant information updates for everything happening around the globe, we are constantly reminded of the latest natural disaster.
These stories are, of course, all important. However, when combined with the prevalence of breaking news in today’s society, the sheer number of disasters that take place can be overwhelming for the average consumer of information. Since mainstream media moves through stories at such a rapid pace, viewers are often left in the dark about the long-term ramifications of major natural disasters.
Mass media’s innate focus on the now also largely prevents information consumers from gaining a sense of how the toll of disasters has increased over time. For most of us, it is hard to know whether any given year was a particularly deadly one in the context of previous years.
To help individuals experiencing information overload better understand the devastating toll of natural disasters today and in the past, I have constructed the Natural Disasters of History Dashboard. This tool features succinct visualizations sourced from NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).
The data used to conduct this dashboard compiles information about the most impactful natural disasters to occur between the years 1900–2022. I constructed each visualization using Python—specifically through the Pandas library. Once this was completed, I began designing the dashboard itself. After first sketching the dashboard out on paper, I exported each visualization I created in Python then imported them into Photoshop. I created a mid-fidelity, non-interactive version of the dashboard in this software. I then moved to Figma to finish the higher-fidelity version, which was more interactive in nature.
Below is a brief demo video of my dashboard in action:
The first visualization on my dashboard displays the damage cost (in billions of USD) of natural disasters over time on a global scale. When the user hovers over this graph, a new window opens which features more information about the comparison. The trend here is an obvious increase over time, which can be attributed to an increase in worldwide population and material wealth over the last several decades. Furthermore, a large amount of infrastructure growth has taken place in vulnerable areas like coasts, wetlands, or river floodplains.
The second graph on my dashboard displays the cost of all natural disaster damage (in billions of USD) over time for each continent. On this graph, the Americas and Asia have assimilated the highest cost over time. This is also primarily due to a boom of infrastructure growth within more susceptible areas in these continents.
The third graph on the dashboard shows users which types of natural disaster have caused the most deaths globally between 1900–2022. Upon analyzing this visualization, users can decipher that droughts are the natural disaster with the highest mortality rate. This rings true because low water availability can cause shortages in water supplies that affect various activities and the environment; the demand for water supplies among the human race is extremely high. Drought conditions also increase the risk of other disasters, such as landslides and wildfires.
The fourth visualization on this dashboard displays to users which natural disasters cause the most injuries—the most occurring from earthquakes. When earthquakes occur in largely populated areas with built up infrastructure, the combination inevitably results in civilian damage.
The fifth graph on my dashboard displays trends in drought deaths over time. I chose to analyze this natural disaster individually because it has the most recorded deaths out of all disasters in the dataset, and I believed this larger initial number would increase the likelihood of trends appearing. One of the trends that surfaced when creating this draft was a huge uptick of fatalities during the late 1920’s.
After further research, I discovered that this can be attributed to The Dust Bowl—a name given to the drought-stricken southern plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a drought in the 1930s. When the user hovers over this graph, more information about The Dust Bowl is revealed.
The sixth and final graph within my dashboard describes the percentage of major natural disasters in each continent over the last century that the OFDA felt the need to get involved with. The percentages are clearly displayed within each bar. Africa is the continent that the OFDA has provided the most support to during natural disasters over time.
After viewing this dashboard in its entirety, it is my hope that users will hopefully be more cognizant of the increasing effects of natural disasters on a global scale.
References
- National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), “Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters.” Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters..
- History.com Editors. “Dust Bowl,” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 27 Oct. 2009.
- Smith, Adam B. “2021 U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters in Historical Context,” NOAA Climate.gov.
