Explorer Assessment of flooding impacts in terms of sustainability in mainland China

General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Abstract An understanding of flood impact in terms of sustainability is vital for 10 long-term disaster risk reduction. This paper utilizes two important concepts: 11 conventional insurance related flood risk for short-term damage by specific flood events, 12 and long-term flood impact on sustainability. The Insurance Related Flood Risk index, 13 IRFR, is defined as the product of the Flood Hazard Index (FHI) and Vulnerability. 14 The Long-term Flood Impact on Sustainability index, LFIS, is the ratio of the flood 15 hazard index to the Sustainable Development Index (SDI). Using a rapid assessment 16 approach, quantitative assessments of IRFR and LFIS are carried out for 2339 counties 17 and cities in mainland China. Each index is graded from 'very low' to 'very high' 18 according to the eigenvalue magnitude of cluster centroids. By combining grades of 19 FHI and SDI, mainland China is then classified into four zones in order to identify 20 regional variations in the potential linkage between flood hazard and sustainability.