Socioeconomic risk of droughts under a 2.0°C warmer climate: Assessment of population and GDP exposures to droughts in China

Abstract

Socioeconomic development and natural ecosystems of China are strongly affected by droughts. The socioeconomic risk of droughts in China should be quantified under climate change. This study assessed drought impacts on population and gross domestic product (GDP) under the 2.0 C-warmer climate scenario, by implementing multiple general circulation model (GCM) simulations under the representative concentration pathway (RCP). Using the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), we calculated drought frequencies in the base period (1986-2005) and 2.0 C-warmer climate (2040-2059 in RCP4.5). Then, population and GDP exposures were evaluated by combining the drought frequency with population and GDP simulations under a shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP). Droughts were likely to occur more frequently under the 2 C-warmer climate, especially for inland areas of northern China (i.e., Xinjiang, Xizang, Qinghai, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Gansu provinces), consisting mainly of mild and moderate droughts. Population exposure to drought was projected at 4.94 ± 0.36 × 10 9 person-months, around 2% increase over the base period value. GDP exposure would increase significantly to 2.08 ± 0.15 × 10 14 PPP $-months, approximately 14-fold over the base period. Probability analysis showed nearly 50% of the grid cells of China's entire territory undergoing more than an 11-fold increase in GDP exposure. Our findings indicated the climate and GDP effects were primary contributors, respectively, to the changed population and GDP exposures to drought. Population and GDP exposures were distributed unequally across the country, having a large impact in the east where both population and economic activity are highly agglomerated. Our results reveal an urgent need to design and implement effective adaptation measures to overcome droughts, especially in eastern China.

Population exposure to compound dry and hot events in China under 1.5 and 2°C global warming

“…In the context of global warming, increased frequency and intensity of droughts and hot‐related extremes have been observed worldwide (Coumou and Robinson, 2013; IPCC, 2013). These adverse weather and climate extremes often cause large impacts on human society, including public health, which is commonly evaluated based on the population exposure (Chen et al ., 2018; Liu and Chen, 2020). Recent decades have witnessed a multitude of concurrences of droughts and hot extremes (denoted as compound dry and hot events), such as those during the summer of 2003, 2010, and 2018 in Europe, which have led to severe damage with consequences of agricultural losses, vegetation degradation, wildfires, and increased health risk or even deaths (Hao et al ., 2013; Raymond et al ., 2020; Sutanto et al ., 2020; Zscheischler et al ., 2020).…”

“…Due to the inequality of climate change over the globe, different countries (or regions) face different stress under the same global warming level, particularly for some poor and developing countries with low adaptive capacities and rapid population growth, where more adverse climate extremes have been detected for both historical and projected periods (Diffenbaugh and Burke, 2019; Sun et al ., 2019). As the largest developing country, China has already experienced faster temperature increase than global average (Wang et al ., 2019), and is subjected to increased droughts and heat waves in many regions in recent decades and future projections (Sun et al ., 2014; Wang and Chen, 2014; You et al ., 2014; Li et al ., 2016; Zhu et al ., 2017; Hu and Sun, 2020; Liu and Chen, 2020; Zhang et al ., 2020). Meanwhile, a consistent increase in the frequency of compound dry and hot events has been detected, which is expected to intensify in the future (Li et al ., 2018a; 2018b; Wu et al ., 2019; Chen et al ., 2019a; Wu et al ., 2021a), and would pose drastic threats to a variety of sectors including public health in China.…”

Predictions Based on Different Climate Change Scenarios: The Habitat of Typical Locust Species Is Shrinking in Kazakhstan and Xinjiang, China

“…Semiarid and arid regions have fragile ecosystems and are more vulnerable to persistent climate change and extremes. Under two °C (RCP4.5-2040-2059), drought conditions will worsen in Kazakhstan and Xinjiang in northwestern China [ 61 ]. Climate change, especially in its extremes, can affect species distributions.…”