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Exploring the characteristics of major natural disasters in China and their impacts during the past decades

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Abstract

The exploration of the characteristics of natural disasters (NDs) and their impacts have important implications for guiding disaster prevention and mitigation. This paper discussed the characteristics of the major NDs that occurred in mainland China between 1980 and 2011 based on the number of disasters and fatalities, the affected population, and the resulting economic damages. We further examined the relationships between the level of social/economic development and the disaster losses. At last, we also explored the trend variations in disaster losses and losses expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product (losses/GDP) for 31 provinces in China over the period from 1990 to 2011. The results show that over the past three decades, the number of major NDs and the number of affected population appear to exhibit a detectable increasing trend, while the direct economic losses and the deaths show a slight increase trend. The correlations between the number of disasters and the economic losses as well as deaths and between the economic losses and socioeconomic status were not significant (p > 0.05), which indicates that the growth in the number of disasters do not result in a significant increase in the disaster losses. Further investigations demonstrate that as economies develop, there are fewer losses/GDP in China over the past two decades. The per capita accumulative losses and losses/GDP in the western and central regions were higher than that in the eastern parts of China. There are significant regional differences in the trends in disaster losses and losses/GDP in China. Statistics also indicate that more than 70 % provinces in underdeveloped regions show an increasing trend in disaster losses, whereas exceeding 90 % provinces exhibit a decreasing trend in their losses/GDP. These results suggest that the economic development may have played an important role in improving the capacity of disaster prevention and reduction.

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Notes

  1. The numbers of droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, floods, insect infestations, mass movement dry (wet), storms, and wildfire that occurred in China during the period 1980–2011 were 28, 106, 11, 193, 1, 62, 206 and 6, respectively.

  2. According a previous report, the eastern region includes Liaoning, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Shangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Hainan; the western region includes Shannxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Tibet; The central region are Shanxi, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henai, Hubei, and Hunan (He and Duchin 2009).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41171401), National Basic Research Programme of China (2012CB955402), and International Cooperation Project funded by Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2012DFG20710).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster, MOE, Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yang Zhou, Ning Li, Jidong Wu, Xiaotian Gu & Zhonghui Ji

  2. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Wenxiang Wu

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  1. Yang Zhou
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Correspondence to Ning Li.

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Zhou, Y., Li, N., Wu, W. et al. Exploring the characteristics of major natural disasters in China and their impacts during the past decades. Nat Hazards 69, 829–843 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0738-3

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