Direct and Indirect Economic Losses Using Typhoon-Flood Disaster Analysis: An Application to Guangdong Province, China

Guangdong Province is one of China’s largest and most developed regions. It is home to more than 113 million people and features unique geographical and climatic characteristics. Typhoons that pass through often result in heavy rainfall, which causes flooding. The region’s risk of typhoon and flood disasters, and the resulting indirect economic impacts, have not been fully assessed. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a method for assessing the spatial and temporal cumulative risk of typhoon-induced flood disasters, and the resulting indirect economic impacts, in order to deal with the uncertainty of disasters. We combined an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and spatial analysis using a geographic information system (GIS) to produce a comprehensive weighted-risk assessment from three different aspects of disaster, vulnerability, and resilience, with 11 indicators. A new method for computing risk based on spatial and temporal cumulative patterns of typhoon-induced flood disasters was introduced. We incorporated those direct impacts into a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate indirect economic losses in alternative scenarios according to different risk levels. We found that the risk in the coastal area is significantly higher than that in the northern mountainous area. The coastal areas of western Guangdong, Pearl River Delta, and Chaoshan Plain face the greatest risk. Our results indicate that typhoon and flood disasters have negative effects on the real GDP, residents’ income, consumption, and several other macroeconomic indicators. We found differing disaster impacts across industrial sectors, including changes in the output, prices, and flow of labor among industries. Our estimates provide scientific support for environmental planning, spatial planning, and disaster-risk management in this important region. They are also of reference value for the development of disaster management strategies in similar climatic regions around the world.

The development of climate security discourse in Japan

As the level of understanding about climate change has increased, the term “climate security” has been increasingly used in the rapidly growing literature on this subject. Although Japan has officially acknowledged the importance of tackling climate change, discussion of climate security has been almost nonexistent among Japanese governmental officials, politicians, and academics. Our aim was to trace discourses related to climate security in Japan to determine why so little exists in Japan and whether or not such discourse could suggest new areas for consideration to more comprehensively respond to the climate change problem. Because of different interpretations and uses of the term “climate security” in the existing literature, we first categorized existing approaches to climate security into four types and used this categorization to examine Japan’s discourse from these perspectives. Two of the approaches, namely “long-term irreversible planetary changes” and “short-term abrupt risks to individuals”, had been considered in Japan previously but without specific reference to the term climate security. The other two, “cause of conflict and violence” and “impacts to military and defense organizations”, however, had not been used and need to be included in discussions of climate change in Japan. Some of the topics not discussed in Japan include indirect economic losses of Japanese industries via supply chains, loss of Japan’s exclusive economic zone due to sea-level rise, and the potential inflow of refugees resulting from extreme weather patterns outside of Japan.

Relationships between corridor morphological variables and avalanche deposits volumes

<p><span>Avalanche deposits cause various types of damage to properties and infrastructures every winter, resulting in significant direct and indirect economic losses. However, the factors controlling the deposit volumes are still largely unknown. The main objective of this study is to analyze the geometric characteristics of avalanche deposits in order to understand their relationships with the avalanche corridors’ morphology in the French Alps. Our study focuses on the analysis of 1491 avalanche deposits spread out over 79 corridor in the upper part of the Haute-Maurienne valley, Savoie department, during the period 2003-2017. This work uses data from the Permanent Avalanche Survey (EPA) database, an inventory of avalanche events occurring at well-known, delineated and mapped corridors in France. A statistical method is used to study the relationships between corridor morphological variables and their associated deposit volumes. Our study area exhibits an mean deposit volume of 17 500m</span><span><sup>3</sup></span><span> (q</span><span><sub>5%</sub></span><span> = 4 500 m</span><span><sup>3</sup></span><span> and q</span><span><sub>95%</sub></span><span>= 84 000 m</span><span><sup>3</sup></span><span>).</span></p><p><span> Results show that the relationships between corridor morphology and deposit volumes are only significant (</span><span>⍴</span> <span>> 0,3 and P < 0,001)</span> <span>for avalanches that occur in winter (November-February). The frequency of snow avalanches also influences the size of the deposits, with the largest deposits observed in corridors that show high annual avalanche frequency. However, avalanche deposit volumes occurring in corridors with a low annual frequency correlate more strongly with the corridor morphology. On the other hand, snow avalanche volumes deposited in spring (March-May) seem to be mostly driven by meteorological variables with almost no correlation with the corridor’s morphology. In more details, deposit volumes are primarily determined by the corridor maximum or mean altitude, which reflects the potential amount of snow that can be mobilized. Corridor slope also exhibit a significant relationship with deposit volumes, which is partially indirect through the effect of the slope on corridors mean annual avalanche frequency. Eventually, surprisingly enough, morphological variables that may intuitively appear as important for deposit volumes such as surface area or orientation are uncorrelated or only poorly correlated with avalanche deposit volumes.</span></p>

Selection of interspecific Psidium spp. hybrids resistant to Meloidogyne enterolobii

Since 2001, the disease known as 'guava decline', resulting from the interaction between the phytonematode Meloidogyne enterolobii and the fungus Fusarium solanie, has caused direct and indirect economic losses to the entire guava production chain. Given the lack of sources of resistance in guava genotypes, interspecific hybrids of Psidium spp. were obtained for resistance to the nematode M. enterolobii. To classify the level of resistance of the interspecific hybrids, we evaluated the plant classification methodologies proposed by Oostenbrink (1966) and Moura and Régis (1987). Estimates of genetic parameters were obtained using the REML/BLUP approach. Interspecific hybrids resistant to M. enterolobii were selected that can be used as rootstocks or in new crosses for the development of the guava breeding program.