AsianScientist (Oct. 16, 2018) – Economic losses caused by drought in China may double if the global temperature rises by 1.5°C to 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study, based on 30 years of loss statistics–dating from 1986–from 31 provinces and cities, identifies the intensity, area and duration of drought events in China, and assesses their socio-economic impact.
Recent years have seen significant increase in drought losses around the world. About 20 percent of China’s direct economic losses from weather and climate disasters are caused by drought.
Between 1949 and 2017, an average of more than 2,090,000 km2 of crop area was affected by drought each year, equivalent to a sixth of China’s total arable land. Annual direct economic losses hit more than US$7 billion during 1984 to 2017, according to 2015 price levels.
In their study, scientists projected drought losses in China under various socioeconomic development scenarios for global temperature increases of 1.5°C and 2.0°C.
“Estimated loss in a sustainable development pathway at the 1.5°C warming level increases ten-fold in comparison to the reference period 1986-2005, and nearly three-fold, relative to the interval 2006-2015,” said first author Professor Su Buda, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Under a growth-oriented development scenario, annual average drought loss at the 2.0°C warming level is estimated to be approximately twice that at the 1.5°C warming level, according to the study.
The Paris Agreement proposes to keep the global mean temperature increase to well below 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the warming to 1.5°C, in order to reduce the impacts of a warming climate.
“Keeping the global average temperature increase under or equal to 1.5°C above pre-industrial level can reduce the annual drought losses by several tens of billions of USD,” said corresponding author Professor Jiang Tong of the National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration.
“More efforts on mitigation are needed, so that the 1.5°C warming limit is not exceeded,” Su added.
The article can be found at: Su et al. (2018) Drought Losses in China Might Double Between the 1.5°C and 2.0°C Warming.
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Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences; Photo: Shutterstock.
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