Typhoons, disease outbreaks and now escalating protests: Hong Kong isn’t ready for a citywide disaster

Hong Kong is ranked as Asia’s most disaster-prone city, and while this is usually associated with natural hazards, the next catastrophe may well be man-made. In the current setting of mass civilian anti-government demonstrations, the danger and institutional weakness could arguably have been predicted and mitigated against.

Preparation is key. Although unpredictability underlies risk-reduction principles for all disasters, some emerging threats should be foreseen.

 

The cornerstone of disaster management is resilience – a city’s ability to absorb and recover from the impact of an event. The essential elements of resilience are readiness, response and restoration. Anticipation (and, where possible, avoidance) is critical; the foundation is rehearsal of the coordinated action plan…

 

Technological Insights Into Natural Disasters

The report states that a joint study from Heitman and the Urban Land Institute title, “Climate Risk and Real Estate Investment Decision-Making,” revealed real estate markets “are far from understanding climate risks enough to price them in today.”

Additionally, companies are turning to high-tech data analysts who can go well beyond current flood maps to forecast climate risks for real estate.

Rick Sorkin, CEO of Jupiter Intelligence, was asked in the report what he thought of the water surrounding the island of Manhattan, his response: “It’s beautiful, and it’s incredibly dangerous.”

Jupiter, whose clients include the cities of New York and Miami, Florida, is a startup tech company backed by $40 million in venture capital.

“We’re seeing a dramatic expansion of large corporations coming to us and saying, ‘we need to understand the risks in this office complex, the risks in this hotel, or the risks in this neighborhood, where we have hundreds of millions of dollars of mortgages out,” Sorkin said.

Jupiter analyzes properties, using predictive data points and then gives clients a risk score, forecasting up to 50 years into the future….