Growing global demand for finite resources has the potential to increase disaster risk and the reaching of risk tipping points. Driven by a growing population and increasing development, the global demand pressures for food, water, energy, land and other materials foster practices that maximize production at the cost of our environmental and social systems.
Global demand
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Related Cases
2023
Lagos faces increasingly severe annual flooding, exacerbated by sea level rise and subsidence. In 2021, floods again submerged vehicles and houses, displacing thousands from their homes.
During the 2020-2021 typhoon season, for the first time in 56 years, no typhoon made landfall on Taiwan, leading to one of the worst droughts in the island’s history. As reservoirs fell below 5% capacity, more than one million households and businesses had to ration water.
The vaquita is a species of porpoise on the brink of extinction with less than 10 individuals estimated to be left in the wild. Although not commercially targeted, the vaquita is collateral damage in an ongoing conflict between fishers, government and international illegal trade.
From March 2020 to September 2021, a herd of approximately 15 Asian elephants left their home in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. Along their journey, the herd broke into homes, damaged buildings and infrastructure, and destroyed crops, totaling estimated damage of over $1 million.
In 2020 alone, an area of the Amazon forest burnt down that was larger than Fiji. While fire is often a natural process to manage vegetation, 9 out of 10 of the Amazon fires in 2020 were intentionally set to convert tropical rainforest into commercially used land.
Chinese Paddlefish have been around for an estimated 200 million years, but were declared extinct in 2020. While overfishing and pollution played an accelerating role, much of its demise can be attributed to the multiple dam constructions on the Yangtze River.
Beginning in late 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread among the world population, infecting and killing millions of people, disrupting social life, travel, business and education across the globe.
During summer 2020, around 2,300 km of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia was affected by a record mass bleaching event where corals expel their algae and turn white. Over 25% of the Great Barrier Reef suffered severe bleaching, seriously threatening them with extinction.
