Beyond the Sendai indicators: Application of a cascading risk lens for the improvement of loss data indicators for slow-onset hazards and small-scale disasters

The implementation of the Sendai Framework offers an opportunity for expanding the global application of standardized loss accounting systems for recording disaster impacts. However, the Sendai indicators and existing global disaster databases offer limited utility in achieving the aims of the Sendai Framework through the creation of a knowledge base relevant for informed risk reduction strategies in varied hazard and vulnerability contexts. Using cascading analyses and systems thinking, this paper explores new approaches for improving methodologies for loss and damage data. It focuses on the subset of small-scale disasters and slow-onset hazards, and demonstrates how a systems approach to cascading risk can improve the utility of disaster databases from reactive and static measures of economic loss, to tools for assessing risk and vulnerability across temporal and spatial scales.