Abstract:
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is of great importance in the Belt and Road Initiative. Meteorological and hydrological disasters frequently occur under the background of global change in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor region. Risk assessment of meteorological and hydrological disasters can greatly contribute to disaster prevention and mitigation in this area. In this review, the integrated risk assessment was performed on the magnitude and likelihood of potential losses caused by hydrometeorological disasters (such as floods, droughts, terrestrial rain, and extreme high/low temperatures). Specifically, a systematic framework of risk assessment was constructed, where the hazards, exposure, and vulnerability were taken as the factors of increased risk, whereas, resilience was a factor of reduced risk. Meteorological and hydrological data was collected from 1961 to 2015, including the maximum and minimum temperatures, and precipitation, as well as the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI). The terrain data (such as elevation and slope) was supplemented with socio-economic indicators, including population density, population structure, proportion of cultivated land area, cropped area, road density, and GDP. A weighted sum method was proposed to integrate the subjective analytic hierarchy process and objective entropy theory (analytic hierarchy process-entropy weight methodology), in order to obtain the weights of hazard and vulnerability indicators. Finally, the integrated risk assessment of meteorological and hydrological disasters was conducted using the risk matrix and Borda count method. The region was classified into different risk levels. The results indicate that: 1) The high-risk areas of hydrometeorological disasters were located mainly in Sindh and Punjab Provinces of Pakistan, covering approximately 9% of the total area of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. 2) The comprehensive vulnerability of the exposed elements showed that Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provinces in Pakistan shared relatively higher vulnerability levels, while Kashgar in China exhibited a relatively lower vulnerability level. The higher exposure level in Punjab was attributed to the high population density. The high sensitivity level was found in the eastern part of Sindh and the western part of Balochistan. However, the recovery capacity in Punjab was relatively high, which reduced the overall vulnerability. 3) Different regions of risk levels were divided using the risk matrix method. High-risk areas were distributed mainly in Sindh Province, the northern and southern regions of Punjab Province, the part areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, and the western region of Balochistan Province. Meanwhile, the low-risk areas were distributed mainly in Gilgit-Baltistan (northern region) of Pakistan and Kashgar region of China. The areas with the low, moderate-low, moderate, and high integrated risk levels accounted for 14.09%, 17.27%, 37.70%, and 30.94% of the total, respectively. The percentage of high-risk zones was 66.50%, 60.00%, and 47.57%, respectively, in Sindh Province, Azad Kashmir in Pakistan, and Punjab Province. 51 counties were classified as the high-risk category at the county level. Furthermore, the highest comprehensive risk levels were found in Islamabad and Lahore of Pakistan after risk elimination using the Borda count method, whereas, the lowest comprehensive risk levels were in the Wuqia County of China and Ziarat County of Pakistan. The findings can also provide valuable scientific basis for the prevention and mitigation of hydrometeorological disasters in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.