Observed Exposure of Population and Gross Domestic Product to Extreme Precipitation Events in the Poyang Lake Basin, China

Based on the observation data from the Poyang Lake Basin (China), an extreme precipitation event (EPE) is defined as that for which daily precipitation exceeded a threshold of 50 mm over a continuous area for a given time scale. By considering the spatiotemporal continuity of EPEs, the intensity-area-duration method is applied to study both the characteristics of EPEs and the population and gross domestic product (GDP) exposures. The main results are as follows. (1) During 1961-2014, the frequencies and the intensities of the EPEs are found to be increasing. (2) The annual area impacted by EPEs is determined as 7.4 x 10(4) km(2) with a general upward trend of 400 km(2)/year. (3) The annually exposed population is estimated as 19% of the entire population of the Basin, increasing by 1.37 x 10(5)/year. The annual exposure of GDP is 8.5% of the entire GDP of the Basin, increasing by 3.8 billion Yuan/year. The Poyang Lake Basin experiences serious extreme precipitation with increasing trends in frequency, intensity, and exposure (for both GDP and population). It is imperative that effective disaster prevention and reduction measures be adopted in this area to mitigate the effects of extreme precipitation.