Regional Temporal and Spatial Trends in Drought and Flood Disasters in China and Assessment of Economic Losses in Recent Years

Jieming Chou, Tian Xian, Wenjie Dong and Yuan Xu
Additional contact information
Jieming Chou: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Tian Xian: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Wenjie Dong: School of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangdong 510275, China
Yuan Xu: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Understanding the temporal and spatial distribution in disasters plays an important role in disaster risk management. The present study aims to explore the long-term trends in drought and floods over China and estimate the economic losses they cause. A peak-over-threshold approach is used to identify flood peaks, and the relationship between the disasters and climate indices is investigated using Poisson regression. The major results are as follows: (1) the northeastern part of China was severely affected by drought disasters (average damaged area was 6.44 million hectares); (2) the northern part of East China and Central China upstream of the Yangtze River were severely affected by flood disasters (average damaged area was 3.97 million hectares); (3) in the Yangtze River Basin, there are increasing trends in terms of drought and extreme precipitation, especially upstream of the Yangtze River, accompanied by severe disaster losses; and (4) by combining the trends in drought and extreme precipitation days with the spatial distribution of damaged areas, the study indicates that the increasing trend in droughts has shifted gradually from north to south, and the increasing trend in extreme precipitation gradually has shifted from south to north.

Keywords: Damaged area; direct economic loss; disaster; drought; extreme precipitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/55/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/55/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2018:i:1:p:55-:d:192465

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().