Historical and Future Changes in Asset Value and GDP in Areas Exposed to Tropical Cyclones in China

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (TCs) can wreak havoc on the landscape and overwhelm communities. Since economic exposure is an important factor in damage function, an evaluation of economic exposure is essential because the characteristics of TC-related hazards are changing under accelerating economic development patterns. Here, we first reconstructed the wind and rainfall fields of historical TCs through an extensive database to extract the economic exposure to TC-prone areas on the mainland of China. We found that rainfall is an important factor in determining the affected extent of a TC event and that economic exposure will be misestimated when considering only the wind field. The results reveal that economic exposure to TCs has increased considerably from 1990 to 2015 and will continue to increase until the year 2100 under shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). We found that 66.7% of China?s gross domestic product [GDP; CNY 48.6 trillion (7.8 trillion U.S. dollars)] and 63.9% of China?s asset value [CNY 139.5 trillion (22.4 trillion U.S. dollars)] were concentrated in TC-prone areas in 2015 and increased at an average annual rate of 10.6% and 13.9%, respectively. Projections of GDP scenarios under SSPs revealed continued growth in the early twenty-first century, and the range of GDP and asset value in TC-prone areas by 2100 varied. Further detailed studies are needed to provide a detailed damage function for TC loss assessments under climate change and to consider how TC hazards will interact under changes in exposure and vulnerability related to economic development and social change.