Integrated impact analysis of yellow-dust storms : a regional case study in China

Abstract

The dust storm is a meteorological event that is caused by strong winds and proceeds from arid and semi-arid regions, transporting a thick cloud of fine sediments. In China, the sediments of dust storms mainly come from the desert and thus are called "yellow-dust storms." Although these storms can disrupt socioeconomic activities widely and pose hazards to human health as well as to the ecosystem, no one has made a systematic socioeconomic analysis of yellow-dust storms. I provide an integrated regional socioeconomic framework to quantify the impacts of yellow-dust storms, as a conceptual model and a demonstration of applicable methodologies. I conduct a case study using 2000 Beijing data, mainly applying input-output analysis, dose-response analysis, and a benefit-transfer approach, and test my results with sensitivity analysis. I demonstrate that the economic impacts of yellow-dust storms have reached all sectors of the regional economy, and that their delayed impacts were more significant than the immediate impacts. Further, I clarify the extent of the economic impacts of yellow-dust storms by both backward and forward linkage analyses. On the basis of both quantitative and qualitative analysis results, I discuss the policy implications of yellow-dust control and show that water-resource planning is critical both for the prevention and mitigation of yellow-dust storm problems.