Climate change and urbanization have exposed coastal area to increasing risks of typhoon flooding. However, the limited financial resources invested in disaster mitigation have become a major challenge for flood mitigation efforts. Rational allocation of limited disaster risk reduction (DRR) funding is the key to mitigating these contradictions, but two major scientific issues need to be resolved. First, there is competition among different government departments (e.g., water conservancy, municipal, emergency, etc.) for applications of limited DRR funding. Moreover, different mitigation measures belonging to different disaster reduction departments do not achieve the same marginal benefits in specific regions and time. Therefore, the first scientific problem faced is how to accurately quantify the economic benefits of different disaster mitigation measures to decide on their priorities scientifically and rationally. Second, the complexity of the typhoon flooding process of typhoons in coastal areas and the multiple challenges of acquiring high spatial and temporal resolution data and integrating multi-scale models to conduct the economic assessment of disaster mitigation measures are technical bottlenecks that limit the accurate quantification of the benefits of disaster mitigation measures. Therefore, how to accurately simulate and reconstruct the complex typhoon flooding process in coastal areas, and then more accurately and reliably achieve the quantitative assessment of flood risk is the second scientific problem faced.
To address these problems, this study focuses on two technical challenges. The first is to develop a coupled model that can accurately simulate the typhoon rainfall-flood-storm surge disaster chain while ensuring parameter accuracy and model applicability. The second is to achieve accurate reproduction of historical flooding events and quantify uncertainty in risk assessment to ensure the accuracy of cost-benefit analyses of mitigation measures. Specifically, this paper takes Haikou City areas as the object of study and constructs a typhoon flood hydrodynamic coupling model. The study reconstructs historical typhoon flood disaster events in Haikou City areas and analyzes the temporal and spatial pattern changes of the typhoon flood disaster and its driving factors. Based on these findings, the study carries out a risk analysis of the typhoon flood disaster and assesses the economic benefits of disaster mitigation measures. And the main contents of this study are as follows:
(1) A methodological framework for assessing changes in spatial and temporal patterns of typhoon flooding in coastal area and the benefits of disaster reduction was constructed. Firstly, a computational framework for multi-process coupling of typhoon flooding was established, incorporating a one-dimensional river network model, a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model, and a storm surge hydrodynamic model. On this basis, the reconstruction method of long historical typhoon flood events was developed, incorporating techniques such as data optimization and dynamic parameter setting. Secondly, based on spatio-temporal statistical analysis, a framework for identifying the changes in the spatio-temporal pattern of flood hazards and their driving factors is established. Then, the flood risk quantification framework is improved by integrating flood hazard modeling, loss quantification considering uncertainty, and loss exceeding probability calculation. Finally, the economic evaluation framework of typhoon flood mitigation measures in coastal area was developed by integrating scenario setting for mitigation measures, cost estimation of mitigation measures, and risk quantification-based methods for assessing the benefits of mitigation measures.
(2) A coupled typhoon flooding hydrodynamic model including a one-dimensional river network model, a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model and a storm surge model is constructed, the detailed parameter calibration and historical field validation are conducted, and model uncertainties are analyzed. Firstly, based on the IFMS model software and the collected data of 19 major river cross sections, 10m resolution DEM, and 30m resolution near-shore topography in Haikou area, a one-dimensional river network model, a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model and a storm surge model were constructed, and the simulation of the typhoon flooding chain was realized through the loose coupling strategy. Secondly, the key parameters were preset by the land use and other subsurface data with the model parameter reference table. Then, based on 61 inundation depths and measured water level and flow data of rivers during Typhoon Rammasun, and 22 digitized historical typhoon storm surge levels, the model parameter calibration and municipal network drainage capacity estimation were carried out. At the same time, based on 31 historical typhoons and Typhoon Nalgae in 2011, the applicability validation of the coupled model was carried out. Finally, an uncertainty analysis of the model's data, parameters and simplifying assumptions was conducted.
(3) Historical typhoon flooding events in Haikou City areas were reconstructed, and their spatial and temporal feature evolution and driving factors were analyzed. Additionally, the distribution of flooding hazard during typical return periods was determined. Firstly, historical typhoon tracks, rainfall, river runoff, and impervious surface datasets were screened based on the principle of data preference. Using these screened datasets, simulation reconstruction was conducted for historical typhoon events with complete data. Secondly, based on statistical methods such as trend tests, the trends of typhoon flooding drivers such as rainfall and land use were analyzed. Then, based on the maximum inundation water depth and maximum tide level data of the simulated historical events, the temporal and spatial trends as well as the correlation analysis of the drivers were carried out. Finally, the estimation and optimization of return periods and six typical return periods for rainfall, land flooding, and storm surges were carried out by combining three sampling methods and nine fitting distribution functions.
(4) A quantification of historical typhoon and flood losses and risk analysis of Haikou City was conducted to analyze the cost-benefits of scenarios of disaster mitigation measures in different sectors. Firstly, based on the reconstructed typhoon flood hazard database, the historical typhoon flood losses were quantitatively assessed by used the fixed capital stock data and rate-adjusted vulnerability curves for the period 2000 ~ 2020. Secondly, based on the results of the risk analysis, 4 types of mitigation strategies including pipeline network upgrading, levee and tide embankment reinforcement, and pre-disaster property relocation were designed. The implementation costs of the three types of engineering mitigation measures were estimated through similar cases, and the benefits of each measure were quantified using the loss exceedance probability and average annual loss methods. Then, based on the cost-benefit analysis evaluation indexes such as net present value and internal rate of return, the prioritization of the implementation order of each mitigation measure was determined. Finally, uncertainty analyses of three scenarios of disaster reduction measures were conducted based on three-parameter sensitivity scenarios.
The main conclusions of this paper are:
(1) The coupled hydrodynamic model, which considers the typhoon rainfall-flooding-storm surge disaster chain, can more accurately simulate the typhoon flooding process of typhoons in the coastal area of Haikou City. The model can achieve the simulation and reconstruction of historical typhoon flooding events with high spatial and temporal resolution in the study area. The coupled typhoon rainfall-flood-storm surge model outperforms the model considering only a single or dual flooding source in terms of simulation accuracy and the ability to identify medium and high-risk areas. Specifically, the coupled model achieves the greatest improvement in the R2 metric from 0.139 to 0.729 compared to the combined scenario that only considers river flooding and storm surge and achieves an improvement in R2 from 0.671 to 0.729 compared to the combined scenario that only considers rainfall and river flooding. And the reconstruction simulation with high temporal and spatial resolution of typhoon flooding in the last 40 years and typhoon storm surge in the last 70 years was achieved based on the coupled model.
(2) There was an overall increasing trend in land flooding in the study area over the last 40 years (P < 0.05), and no trend in typhoon storm surge hazard over the last 70 years; among the natural drivers, the correlation between the maximum 12-hour rainfall and the degree of flood hazard was the most significant (mean(Corr) = 0.81, p < 0.05); and among the anthropogenic drivers, the correlation between the area of impermeable surfaces and the degree of flood hazard (mean(Corr) = 0.37, p < 0.01). Specifically, the maximum inundation depth of typhoon flooding in 48.8% of the areas in the study area showed an increasing trend from 1980 to 2019, while only 8.1% of the areas showed a decreasing trend. The trend of land flooding is in good agreement with the trend of typhoon rainfall, impervious surface area, and peak flow of river runoff. The maximum tidal levels of typhoon storm surges do not show any significant trend changes during 1949–2021. The results of the driving factor analysis showed that the correlation between the medium and high-risk zones area and the maximum 12-h rainfall (Corr = 0.83 and 0.73) was the highest, while the area of the low-risk zone area had the highest correlation with the maximum 6-h rainfall (Corr = 0.88), which all showed significant positive correlations (p < 0.05). Among the anthropogenic driving factors, the area of each risk area has the highest correlation with the impervious surface area, which is 0.41, 0.40, and 0.31, respectively.
(3) In the current mitigation capacity framework in the study area, the implementation of pre-disaster property removal is the most economically efficient of the four mitigation measure scenarios, while the upgrading of the urban drainage network is more economically efficient among the three engineering mitigation measures, followed by the upgrading of riverbanks and seawalls. Specifically, under the scenario of 30% property removal before disaster, the annual expected hazard mitigation benefit reaches RMB 333.284 million, which is comparable to the upgrading of the urban drainage network (RMB 249.474 million), but the implementation cost of property removal is significantly lower than the latter. Comparing the cost-benefit analyses of the three types of engineering mitigation measures, namely upgrading of the drainage network, river embankment reinforcement, and upgrading of coastal embankments, the IRR of the former is 8%, while that of the river and coastal embankment reinforcement is 5% and 6%, respectively.
The innovations in this paper are:
(1) A methodological framework for assessing the economic benefits of disaster reduction measures based on hazard characterization and risk quantification is constructed, which improves the deficiencies of the existing framework for assessing the economic benefits of disaster reduction measures when oriented towards typhoon floods. Firstly, the traditional risk assessment methods for flood disasters are optimized by considering the probability distribution of disaster events, the quantification of uncertainty in loss assessment, and the method of optimal adjustment of vulnerability curves, which improves the accuracy of the quantification of disaster losses and mitigation benefits. Second, based on the disaster characterization and the risk assessment methods mentioned above, the methods for selecting mitigation scenarios and quantifying the benefits of mitigation measures are improved, and an economic benefit assessment framework for typhoon and flood mitigation measures in coastal areas is constructed, which fills in the deficiencies and gaps in the existing economic assessment framework for mitigation measures.
(2) A hydrodynamic model coupling the typhoon rainfall-flooding-storm surge disaster chain process was constructed, and the reconstruction of the historical typhoon flood event set of the Haikou area in the past 40 years with high spatial and temporal resolution was achieved. Through coupled modeling of typhoon rainstorm-flood-storm surge hazard chain processes, a more accurate simulation of typhoon flooding in coastal areas at multiple scales and processes is achieved, which provides tool support to reflect the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of flooding in coastal areas in a more refined and accurate way. The reconstructed historical typhoon and flooding event set of the Haikou area in the past 40 years and the storm surge event set in the past 70 years, which makes up for the problem of insufficient sample data in the previous disaster risk analysis and lays a data foundation for a more reasonable and reliable assessment of typhoon and flooding characteristics and risks in Haikou city area.