The Economic Cost Of The Social Impact Of Natural Disasters

In March 2016, the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities released ‘The Economic Cost Of The Social Impact Of Natural Disasters’. This report looks at the costs and long-term social impacts of natural disasters in Australia and finds the social costs of natural disasters in 2015 were at least equal to the physical costs (as outlined in our previous reports).

The report makes four key recommendations:

Pre- and post-disaster funding should better reflect the long-term nature of social impacts
A collaborative approach involving government, business, not-for-profits and community is needed to address the medium- and long-term economic costs of the social impacts of natural disasters
Governments, businesses and communities need to further invest in community resilience programs that drive learning and sustained behaviour change
Further research must be done into ways of quantifying the medium- and long-term costs of the social impacts of natural disasters

Released: 2 March 2016