Weakened economic impacts with future intensifying drought in Chinese mainland

Abstract

Economic loss assessment of drought disaster (ELDA) plays an important supporting role in government emergency management decision-making and the sustainable development of national economy. Previous studies lack projected ELDA for composite drought under the background of global warming, and the evaluation models used have problems such as low calculation efficiency and poor universality. In order to explore the overall economic impact of composite drought disaster in Chinese mainland, an economic loss assessment model of drought disaster (ELDAM) was constructed based on the occurrence process and loss mechanism of drought. Under different global warming levels (GWLs), economic loss of drought disaster (ELD) in Chinese mainland increases with the intensification of drought. When the temperature rise reaches 4 °C, the ELD under the static scenario and the dynamic scenario that considers the future national economic development level can reach 164.00 ± 67.58 and 86.84 ± 38.06 billion USD2015. They only account for 0.014 ± 0.006% and 0.007 ± 0.003% of the projected gross domestic product (GDP), which is much lower than the reference period (2003–2018, 0.12%). The future economic impact of drought in Chinese mainland shows a downward trend against the background of intensifying droughts, but the economic impact of drought cannot be ignored under GWLs. ELDAM can not only be used to estimate ELD from historical drought disasters, but can also be combined with climate predictions to provide advance estimates of ELD, providing a reliable theoretical basis for strengthening regional drought prevention and resistance capabilities.