| "Over the last century, there has been a significant rise in water-related disasters, affecting an increasing number of people, particularly those living in developing countries. Resulting damages to property and losses of life and livelihoods compromise the gains of development. Agencies in charge of disaster management have recognized the importance of a holistic disaster planning and management for achieving disaster resilience for vulnerable communities and to substantially reduce poverty and disaster losses by 2015 as endorsed by the Hyogo Framework for Action. To achieve this end, a reliable disaster database is one of the most crucial and invaluable tool for risk management professionals working to develop innovative approaches and applications to reduce the risk and impact of disaster. This research reviews the state of the art of disaster database and discusses their limitations for effective disaster planning at each stage the disaster management cycle. The research also looks on the means to overcome the existing lack of international census regarding the best practices for collecting effective and reliable data on disasters with flood disasters in focus. The findings also highlights the emerging needs for more structural program to collect accurate reliable data, local needs and assessment on water-related disasters in various regions of the world for the database to be qualified as policy effective information for disaster risk management. " |
