Is the S-shaped curve a general law? An application to evaluate the damage resulting from water-induced disasters

Abstract

Water-induced disasters are harmful and can cause drastic damage. The response to these disasters is critical, and this task continues to gain global attention. A quick and accurate assessment of the damage is vital to mitigate the effects of the water-induced disasters. This paper begins with exploring the S-shaped curve that is widely observed with many types of damage resulting from the various water-induced disasters. Following that, we propose a conceptual model using the grade of a disaster as the crucial factor and recommend a general function in the form of a hyperbolic tangent function. The damage assessment of the flood and drought events that occurred in the Yangtze River Delta was conducted to explain the processes involved in the function configuration. Flood season precipitation and soil moisture were incorporated into the flood and drought models, respectively, to simulate the functions in agricultural areas hit by drought or flood events. Comparing the calculated result and field survey shows the effectiveness of the proposed damaged estimate function. This proposed methodology can be used to quickly assess the flood and drought damage, and it can also be extended to other types of disasters.