Impacts of Storm Wave-induced Coastal Hazards on the Coast of China

Abstract

The mainland coast of China is 18,000km long and houses more than 50% of its population. There are increasing pressures to develop the Chinese coastal areas for residential, commercial, tourism and recreational purposes. However, the coast of China has been periodically ravaged by tropical cyclones, storm surges and large coastal waves, resulting in heavy losses of coastal economy and human lives. Three individual extreme tropical cyclones occurred in 1956, 1969 and 1994, for example, resulted in the total losses of more than 7,400 human lives and enormous economic damage. The most recent data show that the coastal natural hazards on the coast of China have resulted in annual damage of about US $3 billion to the coastal economy and annual loss of 256 human lives. Few researchers in China have quantitatively assessed impacts of storm waves and high wave runup on the coast of China. This study is designated to quantitatively assess impacts of storm wave-induced coastal hazards on the coast of China based on the most recent coastal hazard data (1989-2016). It is found that the combination of storm-induced high surges and large waves is responsible for all major coastal natural hazards and especially for heavy losses of human lives on the coast of China, and that the storm wave-induced hazard intensity increases spatially from the north to south along the coast and well correlates to wave energy flux.