Major Natural Disasters in China, 1985-2014: Occurrence and Damages.

ABSTRACT: This study aimed to describe the characteristics of natural disasters and associated losses from 1985 to 2014. The Mann-Kendall method was used to detect any long-term trends and abrupt changes. Hotspot analysis was conducted to detect the spatial clusters of disasters. We found an increasing trend in the occurrence of integrated natural disasters (tau = 0.594, p < 0.001), particularly for floods (tau = 0.507, p < 0.001), landslides (tau = 0.365, p = 0.009) and storms (tau = 0.289, p = 0.032). Besides, there was an abrupt increase of natural disasters in 1998-2000. Hotspots of droughts, floods, landslides and storms were identified in central, southern, southwest and southeast areas of China, respectively. Annual deaths from integrated natural disasters were decreasing (tau = -0.237, p = 0

SUBMITTER: Han W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5129328 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature