Is China's coastal engineered defences valuable for storm protection?

Xin Liu; Yebao Wang; Robert Costanza; Ida Kubiszewski; Ning Xu; Zhiqiang Gao; Meng Liu; Ruiying Geng; Meihua Yuan

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.409

Is China's coastal engineered defences valuable for storm protection?

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Mar 20:657:103-107. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.409. Epub 2018 Nov 28.

Authors

Xin Liu¹, Yebao Wang², Robert Costanza³, Ida Kubiszewski³, Ning Xu⁴, Zhiqiang Gao⁵, Meng Liu⁶, Ruiying Geng⁷, Meihua Yuan⁸

Affiliations

¹ Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, Shandong 264003, PR China; Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. Electronic address: xliu@yic.ac.cn.
² Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, Shandong 264003, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China; Ocean College, Yantai University, Yantai, 264005, PR China.
³ Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
⁴ Shangqiu Normal University, Shangqiu 476000, PR China.
⁵ Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, Shandong 264003, PR China.
⁶ Hunan College of Information, Changsha 410200, PR China.
⁷ Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, Shandong 264003, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
⁸ Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia; National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan, ROC.

PMID: 30537572
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.409

Abstract

China has a long history of building hard engineered coastal defences for storm protection, which enables us to examine the economic effects of the hard engineering to mitigate storm damage. Examining historical storm impacts between 1989 and 2016, a significant negative relationship exists between the relative economic damages (i.e., TD/GDP) by storm and the length of existing hard engineering within the storm swath. This indicates that hard engineered defences play a critical role in storm mitigation. We estimated that the storm protection value provided by hard engineered defences in China is CNY 3.18 million/km [US$0.50 million/km] on average, with a median of CNY 1.69 million/km [US $0.27 million]. They provide an annual economic value of CNY 6.04 billion on average. Despite their great contribution to reduce total economic damages from storms, hard engineered defences are not as efficient as coastal wetlands. Coastal wetlands are more cost effective based on comparison from China and USA. This study highlights the need for the Chinese government to transfer focus from prevailing hard engineered defences to ecosystem-based measure or the combination of both measures to prevent storm damage in the future.

Keywords: Coastal wetlands; Costal storm protection; Economic damage; Hard engineered defences; Mitigate damage of storm; Regression model; Seawalls; Service valuation.