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

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.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Ai, Ning, 1978-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Karen R. Polenske.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/30029

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/30029