Study On Spatial-temporal Variation And Influencing Factors Of Meteorological Disaster Damage From 1978 To 2018 In China

Global warming intensifies the water cycle,so that various extreme meteorological and hydrological disasters have become more frequent.As one of the regions that affected by meteorological disasters most severely in the world,China will face more complex and severe disaster risks with global warming.Disaster damage is an important criterion for measuring the impacts of disasters on human society.The severity of disaster damage is not only determined by the intensity of disaster itself,but also influenced by the local social development and adaptability to disasters.Therefore,a clear understanding of the changing pattern of meteorological disaster damage,a reasonable analysis of the variation of extreme meteorological elements and the ability of socio-economic adaptation to disasters,and quantitative evaluation of influencing factors of disaster changes are of great significance to the improvement of regional disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities.In this paper,we firstly summarize the spatial-temporal changing characteristics of meteorological disaster damage in China from 1978 to 2018 based on the statistical data of meteorological disasters.Then the variation characteristics of extreme climate and socio-economic indexes are analyzing based on the observing meteorological data and socio-economic statistical data.Finally,the extreme climate and socio-economic influencing factors of disaster damage are evaluated quantitatively through grey correlation analysis,principal component analysis and correlation analysis methods.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)From 1978 to 2018,the total deaths,crop damage and housing losses caused by meteorological disasters in China generally showed a significant decreasing trend,while the direct economic losses showed a significant increasing trend.Southwest China and the Middle Yangtze River were hit hardest by disasters involving population and house damage,Northeast China and the Huang-Huai-Hai Region were hit hardest in terms of crop damage,and Southeast Coast of China was hit hardest on direct economic losses.According to the comprehensive disaster index,the national disaster gravity center showed a trend of shifting from the central region to the south and then to the southwest.The comprehensive disaster loss was the most serious in the 1990 s while it dropped remarkably in the 2010 s and the average disaster loss among various provinces had little difference during the 2010 s.(2)During 1978-2018,the extreme low temperature index decreased while the extreme high temperature index increased significantly.The increasing range of the high temperature index and corresponding proportion of stations were greater than that of the low temperature index.The annual precipitation,daily precipitation intensity,daily maximum precipitation,extremely strong precipitation and the number of heavy rain days showed a fluctuating upward trend.In terms of socioeconomic indexes,education,health care,transportation and financial and economic levels increased slowly before 2000,but rose rapidly after 2000.(3)The total contribution rate of extreme climate factors was higher than that of socio-economic factors.The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climate events are the main reasons that affect the disaster situation.Meanwhile,the enhancement of disaster prevention and mitigation ability brought by the improvement of social and economic development level has a significant impact on disaster damage.Among the extreme climatic factors,the contribution rates of low temperature index and heavy precipitation index are higher.The contribution rates of various social and economic factors are relatively close.(4)There is a significant correlation between the comprehensive disaster index and the social development index.The improvement of economy,education,transportation,medical and health care is conducive to the enhancement of social disaster bearing capacity and the reduction of disaster losses.In addition,there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between those two indexes.It means that the disaster loss first increases with the improvement of the social development,and then decreases after the development level reaches a certain degree.Taken together,although the risks and challenges of extreme meteorological disasters is intensifying,the improvement of China's social and economic development has effectively promoted the enhancement of disaster prevention and mitigation capacity,so that the synthetic disaster loss has reduced significantly in recent years.It is expected that China's ability to cope with extreme climate disasters will be further enhanced due to the high-quality development of economy,the improvement of infrastructure and the progress of science and technology.