A systemic analysis of typhoon risk across China

Abstract

China is one of the countries that have been continuously experiencing negative impacts by typhoons. Typhoons cause severe damage annually, not only to the regional economy, but they are also responsible for frequent human casualties. This research comprehensively assesses the impact of typhoons across China by using the geographical information system based on time series data between 1980 and 2012. Results indicate that typhoons affected 61% of the total landmass of China during this timeframe with a total affected area of approximately 5.91 million km2. In addition, some coastal regions of south-east China experienced nearly 300 typhoon landfalls. The key entities of this study that are used to assess typhoon risk across China include population, gross domestic production, road networks and land use. As a result, the vulnerabilities of each entity in the typhoon-affected region of China were calculated before leading to the regional typhoon risk indexes. Based on the range of typhoon risk indexes, the typhoon-affected areas in China were zoned into four regions with different levels of typhoon risk. This research will facilitate decision-making by policy makers on the mitigation of typhoon risks.