Assessment of meteorological disasters based on information diffusion theory in Xinjiang, Northwest China

Data of flood, drought, hailstorms, and low temperature events in Xinjiang from 1949 to 2012 were analyzed with the diffusion method to assess the risk of the most common types of disasters in Xinjiang. It was proved that the frequency and intensity of meteorological disasters of the study area showed an increasing trend associated with global warming. Among the four types of disasters, surpass probability of drought was the largest, followed by hailstorm, low temperature and flood in turn. Moreover, the wavelet method analysis revealed that greater oscillations had occurred since 2000, which may be associated with the occurrence of extreme climatic changes. The spatial distribution of frequencies reveals that the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains is a multiple disaster area, the southern slope of Tianshan is the area where more floods and hailstorms occur, and the west of Turpan-Hami Basin is the area wind is prevalent. The relationships between disaster-affected areas and corresponding meteorological and socio-economic indexes were also analyzed. It indicated that there were significant positive correlations between the areas affected and the most meteorological and socio-economic indicators except the grain acreage.