Economic Impacts of Tropical Cyclone‐Induced Multiple Hazards in China

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are known to bring heavy rainfall, strong winds and severe storm surges simultaneously, resulting in tremendous damage beyond the effects of a single hazard. However, the compound impacts of TC multi‐hazards remain unexplored in macroeconomic assessments. Here, we provide empirical evidence on the multi‐hazard economic losses of TC for the first time. We used a national panel of provincial economic output in China over 2000–2020. Our results show that the total macroeconomic impact of the severest TC multi‐hazards can represent up to 14 times the value of merely TC winds. Specifically, the vast majority (over 80%) of the combined TC impacts is caused by precipitation, with wider and greater economic impacts than TC winds and storm surges. Furthermore, high‐latitude and interior regions of China are more vulnerable to TCs due to the interactions with temperature variability and TC wind intensity variability. High‐income areas and secondary industries respond markedly to all TC hazards, and the economic impact of TC precipitation is significant over all sectors. Our findings provide new implications for the socio‐economic impact mechanisms of multiple hazards of TCs and valuable insights into the design of climate policy for compound hazard risks.

A Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification

“…The stronger winds and heavier precipitation produced by landfalling TCs can exacerbate the impacts of storm surge and increase the risk of coastal flooding (Timmermans et al., 2017, 2018; Woodruff et al., 2013). Combined with anticipated growth of coastal population and wealth, TCs striking coastal areas are likely to result in more substantial economic losses, fatalities, and property damages during the late 21st century (Hu et al., 2023; Huang et al., 2022). In our study, we only considered the coastlines of major continental landmasses affected by TCs as “nearshore.” However, several island regions across the world remain vulnerable to the disastrous effects of landfalling TCs.…”

Accounting for surge dynamics is key to modeling tropical cyclone-induced coastal flooding

“…In the USA, storm surge has been found to be the primary cause of fatalities resulting from TCs 2 . In China, the statistical explanatory power in an empirical model has been found to be significantly higher for TC-induced economic impacts and can increase up to 14-fold when considering wind, inland and coastal floods instead of only wind 3 . However, so far global empirical estimates of TC damages use wind-fields as the only hazard predictor and do not account for floods [4][5][6] .…”