Basinwide disaster loss assessments under extreme climate scenarios: a case study of the Kaoping River basin

This study examined the Kaoping River basin, Taiwan, an area severely destroyed by Typhoon Morakot in 2009. Dynamically downscaled data were applied to simulate extreme typhoon precipitation events for facilitating future preparation efforts (2075–2099) under climate change conditions. Models were used to simulate possible impacts in upstream and downstream areas for basinwide disaster loss assessment purposes. The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability and FLO-2D models were applied to simulate slope-land disaster impacts and sediment volume in the upstream area. The sediment delivery ratio was used to calculate the valid sediment amount delivered downstream and the riverbed uplift altitude. SOBEK was used to build a flood impact model for the Kaoping River basin, and the model was used to simulate potential flooding caused by future extreme typhoon events. The Taiwan Typhoon Loss Assessment System established by the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction was used to evaluate the potential loss associated with extreme events. The property loss calculation included 32 land-use categories, including agriculture, forestry, fishery, and animal husbandry losses; industrial and commercial service losses; public building losses; and traffic and hydraulic facility losses. One of the Kaoping River basin townships, Daliao District, had the highest flood depth increase ratio (12.6%), and the losses were 1.5 times the original situation. This was much worse than were the losses suffered during Typhoon Morakot. These results also show that sediment delivered from the upstream areas had a significant influence on the downstream areas. This is a critical issue for future flood mitigation under climate change conditions.     

Debris flow hazard assessment with numerical simulation

Debris flow disasters are usually accompanied by serious loss of lives and properties. However, debris flows are also part of earth’s natural phenomenon, and so what is the reasonable budget to be spent on mitigation measures becomes an important issue for the budget allocation processes. This article utilizes economic concepts to propose a reasonable estimation of the hazard damage and the cost of proposed mitigation measures. The proposed method is composed of four steps, namely, delineating the area of the disaster with different return periods, itemizing the land use within those areas, calculating the hazard loss using official values, and computing the expected probable maximum loss with a probability distribution. The comparison between the assessment of hazard and the economic gains of any proposed mitigation measures can be used as a reference for future decision-making process.     

Benefit analysis of flood adaptation under climate change scenario

Natural Hazards - Typhoon Morakot of 2009 caused the worst flooding in the history of Taiwan. Because research on climate change has indicated that similar extreme disasters are expected to become...     

中国台湾大鬼湖沉积物所保留之降尘记录

本文以中国台湾大鬼湖沉积物岩芯回推此区过去1600年以来PM10与空飘重金属之变化情形.湖区沉积物主要来自集水区冲刷来的岩屑及植物碎屑,一般为黑色,平均粒径30～50μm,PM10约10%～20%.但在干冷时期,由空飘来的祖国大陆北方沙尘较多,形成相对亮度指数较高的白层,其磁化率较高、平均粒径约10μm,且PM10可达60%;而从1350年以来,无机元素沉积累积速率较前期有所增加,且白层中大部分无机元素皆有较高的累积速率,可能导因于空飘物质输入量增加.较暖湿时期,则以亲有机质元素之沉积累积速率较高.