ABSTRACTS. - Statistical analysis of natural disasters data. Shocking media images are broadcast daily about various acts of violence, natural and technological (man made) “disasters”. Television may present a single fallen tree as the outcome of large-scale storm damage. The capacity to compare the losses incurred by threats and disasters would help us clarify the comparison of common events. However, the variety of parameters used to describe various disasters and the lack of a uniform solution for comparing even the same type of natural hazard are problems. This comparison is difficult because the parameters used to describe the natural processes that trigger losses vary. The Beaufort or Nakajima scales of wind velocity are hardly if at all comparable with the Richter scale of the severity of earthquakes or flood levels. Frequently, the scales designed to capture the severity of a natural disaster are such that they themselves render comparison difficult, e.g. different earthquake scales. To resolve this problem, it is necessary to determine a clear cut set of parameters that render various natural threats of the same and different type comparable.
Key words: natural hazards, hydrological disasters, risk calculation, return period, degree of damage.