Evaluation of Economic Loss of 2018/2019 African Swine Fever outbreaks in China

This study evaluates the total economic loss due to the outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF) in China between August 2018 and July 2019. We propose a systematic framework to assess both the direct economic loss on the Chinses breeding industry and indirect economic loss on other sectors. Our evaluation system integrates various statistical analysis methods by applying the cost-loss model and substitution indicator method to calculate direct economic losses and using input-output (IO) model to estimate indirect economic losses. The proposed method provides an innovative and commonly applicable way to deal with the missing data that needs to be adjusted and repaired to be used for economic shock evaluation. We find that total economic loss caused by ASF is 224.768 billion yuan consisting of 99.042 billion yuan direct economic loss of the breeding industry and 125.726 billion yuan indirect economic loss of other industries. Our findings suggest that the overall impact of ASF on China's national economy is relatively small, mainly local and short-term impacts on the swine industry.

Intelligent Decision Support System of Emergency Language Based on Fog Computing

In recent years, various emergencies have frequently occurred worldwide, which has forced relevant service departments to pay more attention to decision-making and emergency management. Since emergency events are characterized by complex environments, unstable events, and time constraints, events usually involve multiple factors and promptly correct errors in the decision-making process. In fact, in many cases, emergency decision-making needs to select an optimal one from multiple alternatives for execution. The fog algorithm decision-making method can solve the problem of optimal solution selection, and it has been widely used in many fields. This article evaluates the emergencies that have occurred in the past 10 years. The evaluation indicators include direct economic loss, indirect reputation loss, ecological environment indicators, and healthy living indicators. The first two are cost-based indicators. The index value of direct economic loss and indirect reputation loss is as small as possible, while the index value of ecological environment index and healthy living index is the larger the better. Among the many selected emergencies, only the index evaluation scores of fires are reliable ( P < 0.01 ), and the evaluation scores of other emergencies belonging to natural disasters are a bit wrong ( P > 0.05 ). The reason for this may be that the direct economic losses caused by natural disasters are not well counted, and the families involved and the environment are too wide. Therefore, the emergency language intelligent decision support system based on fog computing has a good development prospect.

Evaluation on the Meteorological Service for Mitigating the Severe Impacts of Typhoon Rammasun

This study takes the meteorological service of super typhoon Rammasun as an example, and proposes a multi-dimensional quantitative assessment method for meteorological service. Rammasun was the strongest typhoon that landed in China from 1949 to 2019. It hit the coastal areas of China three times, with a rare landing intensity in history. Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan and other provinces have suffered disasters of varying degrees, with a total affected population of 12.084 million and a direct economic loss of 44.89 billion CNY. During this period, the total investment in meteorological services was approximately 1.213 billion CNY, and the economic benefits of disaster prevention and mitigation in the four disaster-stricken provinces were worth 16.1 billion CNY. According to the cost-benefit analysis of economics, the input-output ratio for disaster prevention and mitigation in Typhoon Rammasun was 1:13.

Urban Seismic Risk Assessment by Integrating Direct Economic Loss and Loss of Statistical Life: An Empirical Study in Xiamen, China

The growing densities of human and economic activities in cities lead to more severe consequences when a catastrophe such as an earthquake occurs. This study on urban seismic risk evaluation is carried out from the perspective of the direct loss caused by disasters in urban areas, including the measurement of both the expected direct economic loss and loss of life in the face of characteristic earthquakes. Aiming to estimate, quantify and visualize the earthquake risk in each unit of urban space, this research proposes to assess urban seismic risk by integrating the direct economic loss and the loss of statistical life in a disaster, with consideration of diverse earthquake frequencies. Empirical research of the proposed assessment framework and corresponding models is then conducted to measure urban seismic risk in Xiamen, China. Key findings of the case study include the expected direct economic losses and the expected number of deaths in three characteristic earthquakes, their estimated spatial distributions, the average loss of the value of a statistical life (VSL) of one average local resident and the overall seismic risk distributions in Xiamen.

Tourists “stealing” stuff

Hotel guests are sometimes confused as to what they can take from their hotel room. Passengers are sometimes confused as to what they can take from their flight. When passengers take a flight and hotel guests pay for a room, what items are they entitled to? It is not so clear. This research explores this issue. The economic value of these items can be quite prohibitive and represents a direct economic loss to these tourism businesses. The focus of previous research on theft in the tourism and hospitality industry focuses on tourists being robbed or employees stealing from their employers. This research assesses the self-reported incidence of tourists taking items from hotels and airlines and investigates the relationship between tourists taking both free and not-complimentary items and self-reported ethical tourist behavior. Further, we segment and profile the types of tourists who take items from hotels and airlines. We achieve these research objectives by undertaking a quantitative survey through 538 completed questionnaires captured via an in-person intercept method in commonly frequented tourist hot spots in Hong Kong. The incidence of theft is relatively high for some items, but tourists generally know which items they are entitled to and which they are not. There are three segments of tourists in terms of their self-reported behavior of taking items from hotel rooms and off flights: Honest, Impulsive, and Habituals.

Modeling Direct Economic Loss of Residential Building Contents Induced by River Flood and Storm Surge: A Case Study on Typhoon Rammasun in Haikou City of China

&lt;p&gt;Typhoon often brings heavy rainfall, floods and storm surges to estuaries and may cause devastating disaster loss, especially in the downstream coastal urban areas, so a timely modeling of disaster loss is of great importance to emergency management. However, the complexity of interaction between river flood and storm surge imposes great challenges to the simulation of coastal flood in urban cities. At the same time, the local characteristics of building contents such as their types, values and vulnerabilities in different cities may also vary greatly. Haikou city, located in Hainan Island of China, was flooded due to the cascading effects of the upstream flood from Nandu River basin and the strong storm surge caused by strong winds of typhoon Rammasun during July 18 to 20, 2014.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this study, firstly, the water from Nandu River was simulated with hydrological model and one-dimensional hydraulic model, and the coastal storm surge was modeled with a numerical surge model. The outputs of these models were used as the boundary conditions of two-dimensional hydraulic model, coupled with SWMM to reflect urban surface flow. Based on the above models, the maximum flood depth in Haikou city were derived. The inundation depth of Nandu River Estuary and riverside area is about 4 meters, while it of urban areas is relatively shallow. Secondly, the boundary of all the buildings in Haikou city and their geographic distribution were collected, and the values of contents were estimated building by building based on questionnaire survey data. Finally, based on the vulnerability curves developed in the past study, the direct economic loss of residential building contents were estimated. The results can provide a firm basis for the prediction of future loss before TC landing.&lt;/p&gt;

Daily Precipitation Threshold for Rainstorm and Flood Disaster in the Mainland of China: An Economic Loss Perspective

&lt;p&gt;Exploring precipitation threshold from an economic loss perspective is critical for rainstorm and &amp;#64258;ood disaster risk assessment under climate change. Based on the daily gridded precipitation dataset and direct economic losses (DELs) of rainstorm and &amp;#64258;ood disasters in the mainland of China, this paper &amp;#64257;rst &amp;#64257;ltered a relatively reasonable disaster-triggering daily precipitation threshold (DDPT) combination according to the relationship between extreme precipitation days and direct economic loss (DEL) rates at province level and then comprehensively analyzed the spatial landscape of DDPT across China. The results show that (1) the daily precipitation determined by the combination of a 10 mm &amp;#64257;xed threshold and 99.3th percentile is recognized as the optimal DDPT of rainstorm and &amp;#64258;ood disasters, and the correlation coe&amp;#64259;cient between annual extreme precipitation days and DEL rates reached 0.45 (p &lt; 0.01). (2) The optimal DDPT decreases from southeast (up to 87 mm) to northwest (10 mm) across China, and the DDPTs of 7 out of 31 provinces are lower than 25 mm, while 5 provinces are higher than 50 mm on average. These results suggest that DDPTs exist with large spatial heterogeneity across China, and adopting regional di&amp;#64256;erentiated DDPT is helpful for conducting e&amp;#64256;ective disaster risk analysis.&lt;/p&gt;