Exposure Assessment of Rainstorm Disaster Based on Land Use and Precipitation Extreme: A Case Study of Beijing, China

The risk of rainstorm disaster is expected to increase with rising disaster losses as a consequence. Besides the uncertainty of frequency and severity of rainfalls, it can also be attributed to the expansion of settlement and industrial areas and the resulting accumulation of population and assets. Therefore, it’s important to both analyze historical precipitation and estimate land use condition. In this study, the data of land use status and historical heavy rainfalls of 16 districts in Beijing are collected to obtain the exposure level zoning map and carry out a comprehensive analysis. This is followed by Spearman’s rank correlation analysis and the correlations between the exposure and disaster losses have been discussed. This study presents a new perspective of exposure assessment, and some useful ideas about city planning and management are proposed in view of the inevitable trend of rapid urbanization in China.