Assessment of the Casualty Risk of Multiple Meteorological Hazards in China.

Wei Xu,Li Zhuo,Yi Ge,Zhihui Gu,Yugang Tian,Jing Zheng

doi:10.3390/ijerph13020222

Abstract

A study of the frequency, intensity, and risk of extreme climatic events or natural hazards is important for assessing the impacts of climate change. Many models have been developed to assess the risk of multiple hazards, however, most of the existing approaches can only model the relative levels of risk. This paper reports the development of a method for the quantitative assessment of the risk of multiple hazards based on information diffusion. This method was used to assess the risks of loss of human lives from 11 types of meteorological hazards in China at the prefectural and provincial levels. Risk curves of multiple hazards were obtained for each province and the risks of 10-year, 20-year, 50-year, and 100-year return periods were mapped. The results show that the provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions) in southeastern China are at higher risk of multiple meteorological hazards as a result of their geographical location and topography. The results of this study can be used as references for the management of meteorological disasters in China. The model can be used to quantitatively calculate the risks of casualty, direct economic losses, building collapse, and agricultural losses for any hazards at different spatial scales.

Highlights

Evidence of the warming of the Earth’s climate is growing ever stronger [1]
Liu et al [17], Xu et al [18], and Shi et al [19] used information diffusion method to assess the risks of casualty, building collapse, crop losses, and direct economic losses jointly caused by floods and typhoons at the sub-provincial level in the Yangtze River Delta region
This study quantitatively assessed the risks of 11 meteorological hazards in China at the prefectural and provincial levels using an information diffusion method

Summary

Introduction

Evidence of the warming of the Earth’s climate is growing ever stronger [1]. The resulting changes in climate may affect the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme events, resulting in unprecedented meteorological disasters [2]. An increase in global temperatures may increase the risk of droughts and the intensity of storms, leading to tropical cyclones with higher wind speeds and more intense mid-latitude storms [3]. Since the 1950s, extremely hot days and heavy precipitation have become more common globally and economic losses from climate- and weather-related disasters have increased as a result of large spatial and interannual variations in weather conditions [2,4]. Res. Public Health 2016, 13, 222; doi:10.3390/ijerph13020222 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

Methods

Results

Conclusion