Resilience and loss mitigation: An empirical study from China

The importance of resilience in mitigating the impacts of disasters has gained increasing recognition, yet quantitative analyses assessing its effectiveness in reducing losses remain limited. This paper introduces a novel approach to integrate resilience into a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to quantitatively assess its role in loss mitigation. First, a conventional CGE model is employed to evaluate economic losses caused by disasters without considering resilience, establishing a baseline analysis of disaster impacts. Next, the economic impacts of disasters are reassessed after incorporating resilience into the production module by adjusting elasticity parameters. By comparing the baseline scenario with the resilience-enhanced model, the extent and effectiveness of resilience in reducing disaster losses could be evaluated. To validate the approach, the extreme rainfall event in Beijing on July 21, 2012, is used as a case study. The results show that incorporating resilience leads to a significant reduction in economic losses. Specifically, the losses of total output are reduced from $29.10 billion to $20.98 billion, corresponding to a reduction in the loss rate from 3.88% to 2.80%. Furthermore, recovery rates vary across industrial sectors, with wholesale and retail trade, and services recovering most quickly, while sectors such as the production and supply of electricity, gas, water, and manufacturing exhibit slower recovery rates. This research provides valuable insights into disaster resilience assessment. The findings have practical implications for policymakers and agencies involved to carry out the development of resilience strategies and post-disaster management.