Using virtual laboratories for disaster analysis - a case study of Taiwan

Due to its geographic location, Taiwan frequently experiences severe natural disasters (for example earthquakes and typhoons) that significantly interrupt business operations and subsequently cause extensive financial losses. Prior work on economic losses resulting from such natural disasters in Taiwan has not considered regional and sectoral spillover effects. In this work, we estimate the economic impacts resulting from the 1999 Chichi earthquake, the 2009 typhoon Morakot, the 2016 Tainan earthquake, and the 2016 typhoon Megi. We do so in the new TaiwanLab, a collaborative virtual laboratory that is capable of generating a time-series of subnational multiregional input-output (MRIO) tables, capturing interregional transactions among 267 sectors across Taiwan's 22 city-counties. We identify critical economic sectors in regions of high vulnerability to natural disasters. Our research is, thus, a credible reference to decision-making that determines regional and sectoral prioritisation for damage mitigation, improved resiliency, and faster recovery schedules.