The World Bank yesterday warned that Bangkok faced a high risk of natural disaster, especially massive flooding that could cause huge economic losses. It suggested that policy-makers make three preparations to deal with disasters: optimise the effectiveness of the Bt350-billion water-management budget; ensure cooperation among agencies assigned to analyse and study legal aspects of disaster issues; and develop city plans that minimise disaster risks from urban expansion, said World Bank official Abhas Jha.

Jha, sector manager for transport, urban and disaster risk management for East Asia and the Pacific for the bank, also praised the government for its quick and effective resolution of the flood disaster in 2011.

"The Thai government has budgeted Bt350 billion to invest in water management, which will lead to fast rehabilitation of the Thai economy. [Efficient] space utilisation and having good plans for land use and planning to serve the expansion of cities at the highest efficiency to [make urban centres less vulnerable] will be a new challenge for Thailand's policy-makers. With the strong growth of urbanisation, the Kingdom faces a serious problem [deciding where] its production and industrial sectors should be located."

Bert Hofman, the World Bank's chief economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, said major cities including Bangkok had faced increasing risk of disasters as they lacked good urban planning. This has the potential to cause huge economic losses despite the strong growth the region currently enjoys.

"More than 50 per cent of the population of East Asia lives in cities such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila. The high expansion of cities within the region is of concern as it creates higher risks of disasters. The expansion of cities will increase continuously in the next 30 years and [oblige] the governments in this region to launch good management techniques to protect their countries from disasters," he said.

According to the World Bank's report, there is uneven capacity and readiness to invest in disaster risk management (DRM) among the countries of East Asia and the Pacific. The region includes developed countries with sophisticated institutions and instruments to manage the risks of disasters effectively (Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand), countries that have made considerable steps in mainstreaming DRM into development (China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam), and countries that face severe capacity and institutional constraints (Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pacific island countries).

Small Pacific islands, Papua New Guinea and East Timor face serious challenges in their ability to recover from disasters. Significant capacity and funding gaps also exist between the central and local levels of government, as well as between rural and urban areas.

Low-income countries are unprepared and underfunded for their task of managing risk and leading recovery, and this is particularly true for local-level institutions. For example, globally, fewer than 20 per cent of low- and lower-middle-income countries invest in land-use planning, fewer than 30 per cent of low-income countries invest in landslide-mitigation measures, and fewer than 50 per cent of low-income countries invest in drainage infrastructure to mitigate flooding.

Many countries in East Asia and the Pacific have made advances in DRM at the national level in formulating legislation and strategies, but implementation remains a challenge. Local-level institutions lack the appropriate budgets, human resources, and technical capacity in their role as first responders and leaders in mainstreaming resilience into local-level investments.

In the past five years, Asia has experienced a large share of wide-scale natural catastrophes, including floods in 2011 in Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.

The year 2011 was the costliest on record for natural disasters with cascading effects (Japan) and trans-boundary consequences (Thailand), adding up to US$380 billion (Bt11.6 trillion) in economic losses, almost doubling the 2005 record of $262 billion. In the first nine months in 2011, East Asia sustained about 80 per cent of all disaster losses worldwide.

Growth of assets and population in harm's way is the single largest driver of disaster risk. Asia's urbanisation is unique in terms of growth of population, cities and densities. From 1980 to 2010, Asia added more than a billion people to its cities - more than all other regions combined - and another billion dwellers will live in cities by 2040.

Urban Asia has high population densities and most of the world's mega-cities - by 2025, their number is expected to increase to 21 out of a global total of 37. Growth of assets and mega-cities means that multibillion-dollar disasters are becoming more widespread in the region.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Extreme Events and the latest scientific evidence, long-term trends in normalised losses have not been attributed to natural or man-made climate change. Unplanned or poorly planned rapid urbanisation creates highly vulnerable communities, particularly through informal settlements and inadequate land management.