Population and GDP Exposure to Extreme Precipitation Events on Loess Plateau under the 1.5 °C Global Warming Level

• Published in: Atmosphere Vol. 13; no. 9; p. 1423
• Main Authors: Ta, Zhijie, Li, Kaiyu, Han, Hongzhu, Jin, Qian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.09.2022
• Subjects: Air pollution; China; Climate change; Climate effects; Daily precipitation; Disaster risk; Drought; Droughts; Emissions; Environmental aspects; Exposure; extreme precipitation events; Extreme values; Extreme weather; GDP; Global temperatures; Global warming; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Gross Domestic Product; Hydrologic data; Influence; Loess Plateau; Mean temperatures; Mitigation; Paris Agreement; Plateaus; Population; Population studies; Precipitation; Precipitation (Meteorology); Precipitation data; Regions; Risk reduction; China; Japan; Loess Plateau
• ISSN: 2073-4433; 2073-4433
• DOI: 10.3390/atmos13091423

To mitigate the adverse effects of climate warming, the Paris Agreement proposed the goal to reduce global warming up to an increase of 1.5 °C above the preindustrial level. Study of the population and GDP exposure to precipitation extreme events under the 1.5 °C warming target is fundamental for disaster risk mitigation and adaptation on the Loess Plateau. This study projected the population and GDP exposure to extreme precipitation events under the 1.5 °C global warming level on the Loess Plateau using daily precipitation data from CMIP6 outputs and population and GDP data under a Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 1(SSP1) 2.6 scenario. The population and GDP exposure were evaluated by combing the frequency and the areal coverage of the extreme precipitation events. Results show that population and GDP exposure to extreme precipitation events on the Loess Plateau will increase under the 1.5 °C global warming level. The population exposure was projected from 1.32 × 106 to 2.68 × 106 person-year. The population exposure of eastern and southern Loess Plateau is significantly higher than that of the northern region. The annual exposure of GDP ranges from USD 2.9 to 12.3 billion, and the regions with the highest GDP exposure are Zhengzhou, Xi’an, Taiyuan, and Lanzhou. Our results reveal that limiting the increase of global mean temperature to 1.5 °C warming level is of great significance to reduce the social and economic exposure to extreme precipitation events on the Loess Plateau.