Date:
Location:
Speaker: Xi (Sisi) Hu
Xi (Sisi) HU, Ph.D. candidate, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford; visiting fellow, Harvard China Project.
Sponsored by the China Project, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Abstract:
China is historically prone to flooding and droughts. In particular, its infrastructure system is often hard hit by these events. Climate change and the rapid rate of infrastructure development over the past few decades are expected to increase the vulnerability of the system to the impacts of these hazards. Understanding the nature of this vulnerability in the context of climate change is crucial for adaptation decision making. The objective of this research is to understand the vulnerability of the Chinese infrastructure system to flooding and drought impacts and assess its adaptation implications.
In this talk, I would like to share some results on China’s infrastructure vulnerability to flooding and drought and my recent work on impact modelling. We find that infrastructure assets in Anhui, Beijing, Guangdong, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong, Shanghai, Tianjin, Zhejiang—and their 66 cities—are exceptionally exposed to flooding, which affects sub-sectors including rail, aviation, shipping, electricity, and wastewater. The average number of infrastructure users who could be disrupted by the impacts of flooding on these sectors stands at 103 million. For drought hazard, we restrict our work to the electricity sub-sector, which is potentially exposed to water shortages at hydroelectric power plants and cooling water shortage at thermoelectric power plants, where the number of highly exposed users is 6 million. In addition, I analyze the impact of flooding on the Chinese manufacturing sector, which relies on well-functioning infrastructure. We find that flooding reduces the output of Chinese manufacturing companies by 3.6% on average. Whilst further work is required to study the implications on infrastructure, as far as I am aware, this is one of the first empirical study on business interruption as a result of natural disasters in China.