EM-DAT: Natural Disaster Impacts and Economic Losses in DRC

Aggregated annual statistics on natural hazard events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, categorized by disaster subtype. Produced by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), the data tracks human impact and economic costs through early 2026. Each record summarizes disaster frequency, fatalities, and financial damage for a specific hazard type within a given year.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the correlation between 'disaster subtype' and 'total number of deaths' to identify the most lethal hazard types in the DRC
• Modeling 'economic losses (adjusted)' over time to assess the long-term financial impact of natural hazards on the national economy
• Evaluating humanitarian aid requirements by comparing the 'total number of people affected' across different years and hazard categories

Strengths

• Includes both 'original value' and 'adjusted' economic loss figures for longitudinal financial analysis
• Granular categorization by 'disaster subtype' allows for hazard-specific trend analysis
• Utilizes HXL tags for humanitarian data interoperability

Limitations

• Aggregated format prevents the analysis of specific individual disaster events or precise sub-national locations
• Economic loss data in the DRC may be subject to underreporting due to the complexity of local valuation and data collection in conflict-affected areas

Provenance

Source

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)

Collection Method

Aggregated from the EM-DAT international disaster database

Freshness

Updated through March 2026 according to source metadata.

Geography

Democratic Republic of the Congo