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EMDAT Data Entry Procedures

Entered by: The name of the person who recorded the disaster into the database.

Entry criteria: The reason for taking into account the disaster. At least one of the following criteria must be fulfilled in order for an event to be entered into the database.

Killed: 10 or More people killed.

Affected: 100 or more people affected/injured/homeless.

Significant disaster: Significant disaster (e.g. «worst disasters in the decade»).

Declaration/international appeal: Declaration of a state of emergency and/or an appeal for international assistance.

Waiting: An event which is believed to fulfil one of the above criteria and for which more information is expected at a later date.

The EM-DAT criteria for the inclusion of a disaster apply to the event and not to the country-level disaster. In the case of the tsunami, the disaster met the criteria and resulted in 13 country-level disasters being entered, even if in certain countries the EM-DAT criteria were not met. This can result in an apparent increase in the number of recorded disasters in comparison to previous years when the compilation methodology was different.

Disaster Number: A unique disaster number is generated for each event/disaster. The “DisN°” include the year and a sequential number which is unique for each event (i.e. Tsunami 2004, 2004-0659)

Disaster group: Two groups of disasters are distinguished in EM-DAT: natural disasters and technological disasters. This field is automatically linked to the disaster sub-group and the disaster type.

Disaster sub-group: The Natural Disaster group is divided in 5 sub-groups: Biological, Geophysical, Climatological, Hydrological and Meteorological, which in turn cover 12 disaster types and more than 32 sub-types (see Table 1 for the detailed classification and Glossary for relevant definition).

Disaster type: 12 main disaster types has been identified (see Table 1)

Disaster sub-type: Subdivision related to the disaster type. (see Table 1)

Recording procedure: Two or more disaster types may be related, or other disaster types may occur as a consequence of a primary event. For example, a cyclone may generate a flood or a landslide ; or an earthquake may cause a gas line to rupture and cause an industrial disaster. Because two or more disasters may be related, the primary disaster will be recorded first and the related or associated disaster will be recorded at the « country level » in the « Associated disasters » field as the secondary disaster may be different from one country to the other.
 

Table 1.