Droughts and floods threaten China's economic growth, forecaster warns

Cost of crop failure soars as weather disasters become more frequent and severe

Tania Branigan in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 13.22 BST

China faces an increase in weather disasters which will threaten crops and economic growth, the country's most senior forecaster has warned.
He Lifu, of the National Meteorological Centre, told the China Daily newspaper that events such as droughts, floods and storms had become more frequent and severe since the 1990s and the trend was likely to continue.
"Extreme weather will be more frequent in the future due to the instability of the atmosphere, and global warming might be the indirect cause," the forecaster told the English-language paper. He said his agency responded to 16 emergencies last year, the most since its foundation in 1949.
The annual economic cost of extreme weather has soared from 176.2bn yuan (£15.6bn) on average in the 1990s to 244bn yuan (£21.5bn) between 2004 and last year, according to ministry of civil affairs figures cited by the paper.
Farmers are resorting to their own measures to avoid losses. Wheat producers in Henan, Shandong and Hebei fired chemical pellets into the clouds this month to prevent hail and heavy rain from damaging their harvest.
The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has also warned that drought has become more frequent since the 1990s, causing more crop failures.
According to the China Daily, the headquarters figures show that annual grain loss caused by drought has averaged 37.3m tonnes since 2000 – almost twice the level in the 1980s – while the annual average proportion of damaged crops has risen to 59.3%, compared with 48% in the 1990s.
Sun Jisong, the chief forecaster at the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, cautioned that part of the apparent increase in extreme weather might be due to more advanced observation techniques and improved recording.
He added that dealing with the rise would require reduced consumption of energy and resources to tackle the causes and improve forecasting and defences.
Last month, the annual Red Cross report said that a rise in weather-related disasters worldwide over the last decade – from around 200 a year in the 1990s to around 350 – was continuing. Its secretary general, Bekele Geleta, warned that extreme-weather events would become more frequent and more severe.