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Floods May Cost South Asia $215 Billion a Year by 2030

  • Mounting climate change dangers threaten businesses, growth
  • Unplanned urban sprawls, lack of climate planning to add costs
Villagers in West Bengal wade through flood waters on Aug. 23.

Villagers in West Bengal wade through flood waters on Aug. 23.

Photographer: Diptendu Dutta/AFP via Getty Images

As global attention focused on hurricanes Harvey and Irma, more than 41 million people across South Asia battled floods and displacement. 

From Afghanistan in the west to Bangladesh in the east, floods could cost South Asia -- home to a fourth of the world’s people -- as much as $215 billion each year by 2030, according to the World Resources Institute’s global flood analyzer launched in 2015.