Mapping and ranking global mortality, affected population and GDP loss risks for multiple climatic hazards

doi:10.1007/s11442-016-1304-1

Abstract

Abstract:

Coping with extreme climate events and its related climatic disasters caused by climate change has become a global issue and drew wide attention from scientists, policy-makers and public. This paper calculated the expected annual multiple climatic hazards intensity index based on the results of nine climatic hazards including tropical cyclone, flood, landslide, storm surge, sand-dust storm, drought, heat wave, cold wave and wildfire. Then a vulnerability model involving the coping capacity indicator with mortality rate, affected population rate and GDP loss rate, was developed to estimate the expected annual affected population, mortality and GDP loss risks. The results showed that: countries with the highest risks are also the countries with large population or GDP. To substantially reduce the global total climatic hazards risks, these countries should reduce the exposure and improving the governance of integrated climatic risk; Without considering the total exposure, countries with the high mortality rate, affected population rate or GDP loss rate, which also have higher or lower coping capacity, such as the Philippines, Bangladesh and Vietnam, are the hotspots of the planning and strategy making for the climatic disaster risk reduction and should focus on promoting the coping capacity.

Key words: climatic disaster, multiple climatic hazards, mortality risk, affected population risk, GDP loss risk

Peijun SHI, Xu YANG, Jiayi FANG, Jing’ai WANG, Wei XU, Guoyi HAN. Mapping and ranking global mortality, affected population and GDP loss risks for multiple climatic hazards[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2016, 26(7): 878-888.

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Dataset	Data source	Resolution	Time
Climatic Hazards Intensity Indexes	World Atlas of Natural Disaster Risk (Shi and Kasperson, 2015)	0.5°×0.5°	Annual expectation
Global Climate Risk Index (CRI)	German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Germanwatch Program	Country unit	1994-2013
Lack of Coping Capacity Index (LCCI)	European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) INFORM model	Country unit	2015
Death Toll and Affected Population	Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT)	Country unit	1980 - 2014
Population and GDP density (Grid unit)	Greenhouse Gas Initiative (GGI) Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)	0.5°×0.5°	2000, 2010 and 2020*
Total Population and GDP (Country unit)	World Bank	Country unit	1980-2014

i	Climatic hazards	Expected annual intensity index^*	Weight (%)
1	Flood	Expected annual accumulated three-day extreme precipitation (mm)	45.21
2	Tropic cyclone	Expected annual speed of 3s gust wind (m/s)	36.89
3	Landslide	Expected annual landslide hazard index	6.96
4	Drought (maize)	Expected annual normalized cumulative water stress index during the crop’s growing season	2.51
	Drought (wheat)		0.63
	Drought (rice)		2.09
5	Heat wave	Expected annual maximum temperature (°C)	1.74
6	Cold wave	Expected annual largest temperature drop (°C)	1.61
7	Wildfire (forest)	Expected annual ignition probability of forest wildfire (%)	1.03
7	Wildfire(grassland)	Expected annual ignition probability of grassland wildfire (%)	0.61
8	Storm surges	Expected annual maximum inundation area (km²)	0.51
9	Sand-dust storm	Expected annual energy of sand-dust storm (J/m³)	0.22

Expected annual mortality rate			Expected annual affected population rate			Expected annual GDP loss rate
Rank	Country	Per million people per year	Rank	Country name	Per thousand people per year	Rank	Country	Per year (%)
1	Philippines	6.87	1	Philippines	31.55	1	Philippines	7.53
2	Bangladesh	4.16	2	Bangladesh	16.14	2	Bangladesh	3.05
3	Vietnam	3.56	3	Vietnam	13.83	3	Vietnam	2.68
4	Laos	2.61	4	Laos	9.49	4	Bhutan	1.66
5	South Korea	2.47	5	South Korea	8.98	5	New Caledonia	1.66
6	Madagascar	2.40	6	New Caledonia	8.91	6	Lao PDR	1.62
7	Belize	2.38	7	Belize	8.49	7	Korea, Rep.	1.62
8	New Caledonia	2.38	8	Madagascar	8.47	8	Japan	1.60
9	Dominican Republic	2.08	9	Japan	8.13	9	Madagascar	1.53
10	Japan	2.08	10	Dominican Republic	7.19	10	Belize	1.50
11	Burma	2.02	11	Burma	7.08	11	China	1.33
12	Papua New Guinea	1.88	12	Papua New Guinea	6.40	12	Dominican Republic	1.24
13	Guatemala	1.76	13	Bhutan	6.09	13	Myanmar	1.16
14	Bhutan	1.75	14	Guatemala	5.86	14	Papua New Guinea	1.12
15	North Korea	1.60	15	China	5.44	15	Guatemala	0.94

Total expected annual mortality risk			Total expected annual affected population risk			Total expected annual GDP loss risk
Rank	Country	People Per year	Rank	Country Name	Million people per Year	Rank	Country	Billion USD Per year
1	India	2194	1	China	7.89	1	China	75.85
2	China	2181	2	India	7.25	2	Japan	74.93
3	Bangladesh	927	3	Bangladesh	3.60	3	United States	49.14
4	Philippines	726	4	Philippines	3.34	4	Philippines	23.47
5	Vietnam	374	5	Vietnam	1.46	5	India	11.57
6	United States	243	6	Japan	0.95	6	Korea, Rep.	5.96
7	Japan	242	7	United States	0.79	7	Mexico	4.08
8	Indonesia	181	8	Indonesia	0.51	8	Brazil	3.73
9	Brazil	156	9	Mexico	0.47	9	Vietnam	3.72
10	Mexico	152	10	South Korea	0.46	10	Bangladesh	2.90
11	South Korea	126	11	Brazil	0.44	11	Indonesia	2.52
12	Burma	125	12	Burma	0.44	12	Thailand	2.46
13	Pakistan	122	13	Thailand	0.33	13	Germany	2.36
14	Nigeria	110	14	Pakistan	0.32	14	Myanmar	2.13
15	Thailand	104	15	Nigeria	0.29	15	France	1.87