Climate change has increased rainfall-induced landslide damages in central China

Abstract

Global warming exacerbates the frequency of extreme precipitation events and inevitably increases the risk of hydrogeological disasters such as landslides. Understanding the impact of climatic drivers, particularly precipitation, of landslides and the resulting damages is crucial for effective risk management and mitigation strategies. However, few researchers have turned to quantify the causal effects of precipitation anomalies on landslide damages. This study focuses on Jiangxi Province, China, over the period from 2011 to 2020, aiming to quantify the contribution of historical climate change to landslide damages using a panel regression framework with fixed effects. We quantify the impact of long-term and short-term precipitation on landslide damages considering geographical and seasonal differences based on satellite rainfall products. Our results show positive and significant effects of both long-term and short-term precipitation on landslide damages, with a unit anomaly increase corresponding to a 99.7 % increase in damages. Considering the income equality, landslide damages in rich counties show greater sensitivity to monthly precipitation anomaly compared to poor counties. Moreover, we find that climate change contributed to 32.8 % of the total landslide damages in Jiangxi Province over the past decade, amounting to 57 million CNY. Overall, we believe this work could provide quantitative information about the economic costs of climate change on landslides and facilitate related adaptation and resilience strategies.