Cecilia Tortajada and Asit K. Biswas | India Water Review, 2014, Volume 1, Issue 2, pages 42-43
According to FAO, droughts are the world’s costliest natural disasters, inflicting $6-8 billion of annual global losses. Because of their extents, magnitudes and frequencies, their effects are felt by more people in the world than any other type of natural disaster. FAO further estimates that some 11 million people have died because of droughts since 1900, and over 2 billion people have suffered from them.
Global estimates in nearly all areas are highly unreliable. Drought estimations are not an exception. Not surprisingly, another UN institution, ESCAP, estimates that within the last three decades, and in Asia only, some 1.3 billion people were affected, and the cost was over $53 billion.