Dangerousness Analysis of High-Temperature Disaster-Inducing Factors in Jiangxi Province

Abstract

The increasing frequency, intensity and scope of extreme heat events due to climate change, which is mainly characterised by significant warming, is one of the current key climate stressors for sustainable development in terms of socio-economics, ecological balance and agricultural production in Jiangxi Province. High-temperature dangerousness evaluation is the basic work of high-temperature disaster risk assessment. However, in Jiangxi Province, the current research on high-temperature hazards mainly focuses on the analysis of trends and spatial distribution patterns, and few studies are conducted to reveal the risk of high-temperature occurrence through disaster risk theory. In this paper, based on the daily maximum temperature data of 79 meteorological stations in Jiangxi Province from 1961 to 2022, the trends of three disaster-inducing factors (the number of high-temperature days, the extreme maximum temperature and the high-temperature intensity) and their values under four return periods (1 in 5 years, 1 in 10 years, 1 in 20 years, and 1 in 50 years, respectively) are analysed using the least square method and the Kernel density estimation method, respectively. Then, through K-mean cluster analysis, the dangerousness distribution of each disaster-causing factor is obtained and a comprehensive high-temperature dangerousness map is produced. Finally, according to the disaster risk theory, the agricultural heat risk is assessed by the product of high-temperature dangerousness, agricultural exposure (quantified by land use cover) and agricultural fragility (quantified by gross domestic product kilometre gridded data). The results show that: (1) The overall trend of the number of high-temperature days, extreme maximum temperature and high-temperature intensity in Jiangxi Province during 1961-2022 shows an increasing trend, but the trend has a phased character, with a decreasing trend before 1997. (2) The dangerousness of each disaster-inducing factor is relatively high, with the proportion of high-risk areas in the province ranging from 41.7% to 61.4%. (3) The comprehensive dangerousness shows a spatial distribution pattern of low in the north and low in the centre, and the high-risk areas are mainly concentrated in the eastern part of Shangrao and most parts of Ji’an. (4) Agricultural medium-high risk zones are consistent with the spatial distribution of the dangerousness map. However, due to the uneven distribution of agricultural fragility, the low-risk zone is more surrounded by cities, and is mainly concentrated in southern Ganzhou, most of Xinyu, north-central Nanchang, and eastern Jiujiang. This paper can provide some reference for the comprehensive risk assessment of meteorological disasters.

Keywords

• disaster factors
• recurrence period
• dangerousness
• risk assessment