Spatial-temporal pattern changes of main agriculture natural disasters in China during 1990-2011

doi:10.1007/s11442-015-1175-x

Abstract

Abstract:

China is a disaster prone country, and a comprehensive understanding of change of disasters is very important for China’s agricultural development. In this study, statistical techniques and geographic information system tools are employed to quantify the main agriculture disasters changes and effects on grain production in China during the period of 1990-2011. The results show that China’s grain production was severely affected by disasters including drought, flood, hail, frost and typhoon. The annual area covered by these disasters reached up to 48.7×10⁶ ha during the study period, which accounted for 44.8% of the total sown area, and about 55.1% of the per unit area grain yield change was caused by disasters. In addition, all of the disasters showed high variability, different changing trends, and spatial distribution. Drought, flood, and hail showed significantly decreasing trends, while frost and typhoon showed increasing trends. Drought and flood showed gradual changes and were distributed across the country, and disasters became more diversified from north to south. Drought was the dominated disaster type in northern China, while flood was the most important disaster type in the southern part. Hail was mainly observed in central and northern China, and frost was mainly distributed in southern China. Typhoon was greatly limited to the southeast coast. Furthermore, the resilience of grain production of each province was quite different, especially in several major grain producing areas, such as Shandong, Liaoning, Jilin and Jiangsu, where grain production was seriously affected by disasters. One reason for the difference of resilience of grain production was that grain production was marginalized in developed provinces when the economy underwent rapid development. For China’s agricultural development and grain security, we suggest that governments should place more emphasis on grain production, and invest more money in disaster prevention and mitigation, especially in the major grain producing provinces.

Key words: spatial-temporal pattern, grain production, disasters, China

Xindong DU, Xiaobin JIN, Xilian YANG, Xuhong YANG, Xiaomin XIANG, Yinkang ZHOU. Spatial-temporal pattern changes of main agriculture natural disasters in China during 1990-2011[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2015, 25(4): 387-398.

Figures/Tables 7

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Type	Total	Drought	Flood	Hail	Frost	Typhoon
Disaster area	-0.498^*	-0.342^*	-0.385^*	-0.342^*	0.307^*	0.033
Ratio of disaster area	-0.437^*	-0.307^*	-0.351^*	-0.325^*	0.299	0.033
CV of disaster area	0.21	0.34	0.54	0.37	0.61	0.66

Year	Total	Drought	Flood	Hail	Frost	Typhoon	Year	Total	Drought	Flood	Hail	Frost	Typhoon
1990	0.06	0.27^*	0.06	-0.07	0.13^*	-	2001	-0.01	-0.85	0.21^*	0.21^*	0.03	0.13^*
1991	0.08	0.07	0.12^*	-0.13	-0.10	-	2002	-0.10	0.15^*	0.27^*	-0.07	-0.03	0.14^*
1992	-0.06	0.13^*	0.24^*	-0.10	0.09	-	2003	-0.04	-0.07	0.12	-0.17^*	0.05	0.12^*
1993	-0.10	0.13^*	0.02	-0.14	0.03	-	2004	-0.00	-0.19^*	0.12^*	-0.06	0.05	0.07
1994	-0.05	0.07	0.09	-0.02	0.10	0.11^*	2005	0.10	0.11	0.05	0.01	0.23^*	0.27^*
1995	-0.02	-0.03	0.11	-0.09	0.07	0.18^*	2006	-0.09	0.01	0.07	-0.12	-0.04	0.28^*
1996	-0.06	0.14^*	0.06	-0.03	0.25^*	0.23^*	2007	0.02	-0.13	0.12	-0.06	0.18	0.16^*
1997	-0.30^*	0.02	0.19^*	-0.06	-0.01	0.09	2008	0.14^*	-0.08	0.20^*	-0.10	0.26^*	0.15^*
1998	0.11	0.13^*	0.11	-0.2^*	0.16^*	0.12^*	2009	0.00	-0.06	-0.02	-0.10	-0.08	0.14^*
1999	-0.07	0.13^*	0.30^*	-0.11	0.03	0.10*	2010	0.04	0.07	0.16^*	-0.08	-0.01	0.15^*
2000	0.02	-0.05	0.07	-0.03	0.28^*	0.06	2011	0.07	0.12^*	0.05	-0.01	0.29^*	0.15^*

Area	β	Adjusted R²	P	Area	β	Adjusted R²	P
China	-0.756	0.551	0.000	Henan	-0.654	0.399	0.001
Beijing	-0.071	0.000	0.847	Hubei	-0.560	0.279	0.007
Tianjin	-0.741	0.526	0.000	Hunan	-0.213	0.000	0.342
Hebe	-0.700	0.464	0.000	Guangdong	-0.474	0.185	0.026
Shanxi	-0.820	0.656	0.000	Guangxi	-0.350	0.079	0.110
Inner Mongolia	-0.027	0.000	0.903	Hainan	-0.168	0.000	0.454
Liaoning	-0.779	0.598	0.000	Sichuan	-0.698	0.461	0.000
Jilin	-0.770	0.573	0.000	Guizhou	-0.672	0.424	0.001
Heilongjiang	-0.521	0.235	0.013	Yunnan	-0.362	0.088	0.098
Shanghai	-0.217	0.000	0.332	Tibet	-0.255	0.018	0.252
Jiangsu	-0.770	0.572	0.000	Shaanxi	-0.857	0.720	0.000
Zhejiang	-0.655	0.400	0.001	Gansu	-0.451	0.164	0.035
Anhui	-0.719	0.479	0.000	Qinghai	-0.673	0.425	0.001
Fujian	-0.601	0.329	0.003	Ningxia	-0.071	0.000	0.754
Jiangxi	-0.253	0.017	0.256	Xinjiang	-0.386	0.107	0.076
Shandong	-0.833	0.679	0.000

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