EM-DAT: Costa Rica Natural Disaster Impacts and Economic Losses

This dataset tracks natural hazard events in Costa Rica, aggregated by year and disaster subtype. Produced by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), the records quantify human and financial impacts including fatalities and inflation-adjusted economic losses. The data is maintained as part of the EM-DAT project and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyzing longitudinal trends in 'total number of deaths' across different 'disaster subtypes'
• Comparing 'economic losses' (adjusted) against the frequency of events to determine high-impact hazard types
• Evaluating the 'total number of people affected' to prioritize national disaster mitigation resources

Strengths

• Includes both human impact metrics and economic loss figures
• Provides adjusted economic values to account for inflation
• Categorized by specific disaster subtypes for granular hazard analysis

Limitations

• Aggregated format lacks specific event dates or precise sub-national geographic coordinates
• Relies on reported figures which may vary in accuracy based on historical reporting standards

Provenance

Source

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)

Collection Method

Aggregated from the EM-DAT international disaster database

Freshness

Updated as of March 2026.

Geography

Costa Rica