International Comparisons of Large-scale Natural Disasters Damage and Loss Assessment: Based on “Statistical System of Large-scale Natural Disasters” and PDNA

In June 2014, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the National Disaster Reduction Committee Office issued the “Statistical System of Large-scale Natural Disasters Damage and Loss” (SSLNDD&L), in which the standard statistical content and index were explored. Examined by several major natural disasters in recent years, such as Ludian earthquake (Ms 6.5) on 3 August 2014, Nepal earthquake (Ms 8.1) on 25 April 2015, SSLNDD&L provided good basis for post disaster recovery and reconstruction planning, but the direct guidance of reconstruction planning was still limited. Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), the mainstream of the international disaster needs assessment system, was taken as the main research object, and the content and characteristics of PDNA system were analyzed in detail. The comparison analysis was made from the objectives, contents and index system, evaluation methodology, evaluation parameters between the SSLNDD&L and PDNA. In the future, expanding and increasing various industries and local evaluation index focusing on recovery and reconstruction needs, optimizing the disaster assessment parameter database used for the multi-user such as the Central-Province-County scale, supporting the preparation of technical standard optimization evaluation process to form a complete assessment technical specification should be put forward as the future development of the SSLNDD&L. It is of great practical significance to optimize and perfect the content and index of the SSLNDD&L to better serve the decision making of the recovery and reconstruction after large-scale disasters, and to achieve international standards on large-scale disaster damage & loss statistics and assessment in China.