This special issue presents the findings obtained so far by the relevant studies that have been conducted mainly at the Global Centre for Disaster Statistics (GCDS), which is affiliated with the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University, Japan.

The establishment of the GCDS was jointly announced by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the IRIDeS in March 2015 during the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNWCDRR) in Sendai, Japan. The Centre is expected to contribute greatly to sustainable development, based on risk-informed policy making, through the following activities: providing scientific analyses and technical advice based on their disaster loss and damage data, supporting the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and individual countries in the work of monitoring the progress of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and providing policy advice to build the capacities of national/local governments, based on their demands.

In this context, the guest editors of this special issue are pleased to publish valuable academic articles closely related to the GCDS’ activities that contribute to the development of disaster statistics. As Sasaki and Ono (2018) observed, there exist three major categories of research questions that contribute to the development of disaster statistics: investigation into disaster statistics and/or global disaster-related databases, development of the existing discipline-based research, and analysis of various issues through questionnaire surveys.

Last but not least, it is our hope that this special issue contributes to the literature of disaster statistics and accelerates its development.

1. [1] D. Sasaki and Y. Ono, “Overview of the Special Issue on the Development of Disaster Statistics,” J. Disaster Res., Vol.13, No.6, pp. 1002-1006, 2018.