Flood hazard in Hunan province of China: an economic loss analysis

Abstract

Natural and man-made disasters have been increasing and affecting millions of people throughout the world. Floods are the most common natural disasters affecting more people across the globe than all other natural or technological disasters and also are the most costly in terms of human hardship and economic loss. In order to explore the total economic loss, components of economic loss, and factors influencing economic loss during flooding, a retrospective study was carried out in year 2000 in areas that suffered floods in 1998 in Hunan province, China. A total of 10,722 families were investigated using a multistage sampling method. We found that the total economic loss to the 10,722 families investigated was US$ 8.925 million; translating into an average economic loss of US$ 832.45 per family and US$ 216.75 per person. Economic loss related to property loss, income loss, and increased medical cost accounted for 57.38%, 40.00%, and 2.62% of the total economic loss, respectively. Economic loss was significantly related to a family's pre-flood income; duration of the flood; severity of flood; and type of flood. River floods yielded the highest economic loss and drainage problem floods yielded the lowest loss. We recommended that flood-related preventive measures should focus on the prevention of river floods and shortening the duration of floods with the view of significantly minimizing economic losses associated with floods.

Flood hazard zoning in Yasooj region, Iran, using GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis

“…A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land, and may cause damage to agricultural lands, urban areas, and may even result in loss of lives (Huang et al 2008;Veerbeek & Zevenbergen 2009;Merz et al 2010;Markantonis et al 2013;Hudson et al 2014;Perera et al 2015;Yang et al 2015).…”

Application of Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems in Flood Management: A Review

“…Knowledge of flood type is therefore important for proper planning; flood monitoring, management and development of flood early warning systems as well as assessment of flood damage (Huang et al, 2008). Jonkman (2005) though further describes the classification of floods as a hard task given the complex inter-related nature of processes that cause flooding.…”

“…Intangible damages on the other hand include health and psychological losses. It is worth noting that both types can be expressed in monetary terms, for example Huang et al (2008) computed flood damages in monetary terms having classified property loss due to floods as a direct tangible damage and income loss calculated as the difference in income between the year preceding the flood and the year of the flood, as an indirect tangible damage. On the other hand an increase in medical cost for households in the flood year compared to the preceding year was calculated and categorized as intangible damage due to flood.…”

Flood Risk Analysis in Lower Part of Markham River Based on Multi-Criteria Decision Approach (MCDA)

“…More than 140 million people are affected each year in the world due to flood [3]. Flood management and mitigation are vital to the physical and social environment of a nation, which assumes an important role in economic development [4,5]. Flooding can be classified into three different categories based on how fast it is occurring like (i) flash floods, which occur due to heavy rain for a few hours and with little or no warning and disperse quickly, (ii) rapid onset floods, that happen with several hours of heavy rainfall and can last for several days, and (iii) slow onset floods, which occur gradually over a fairly long period of time [6].…”