The Book of Disasters

Publication at RCA Design Interactions, 2011.

A Listing of Natural and Anthropogenic Events with Economic Potential, 1900–2011.

Based on an extract of data from the International Disaster Database, which records significant historical events with human impact and economic damage.

For each event, three statistics are visualised (provided data is available): the number of people killed, the total number of people affected and the estimated damage in US-$.

The thumb index gives an idea of the amount of disasters per decade and shows the rapidly increasing occurence of recorded disasters.

Hardcover, 613 Pages, typeset in Fedra Serif using Adobe InDesign.

Edited by Gerrit Kaiser. Thanks to Koby Barhad, David Chatting and Diana Tanase. Data source: EM-DAT, The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium (Data version: v12.07, 2011-06-11).