Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Mechanism and comprehensive countermeasure for drought management from the view of catastrophe theory

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Natural Hazards Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Drought is one of the major disasters around the world which cause great social and economic hardship. Recent events of severe droughts have motivated comprehensive research on drought management in China like many other countries of Asia, Europe and Africa. In this paper, the mechanism of drought management has been analyzed in light of water supply and water demand management considering water shortage as an inductor of drought. Catastrophe theory has been proposed to explain transitions through discontinuities and unexpected changes in water system. The study indicates that supply management can increase water supply; however, in long term, it may not be sustainable for drought mitigation. Water demand management, on the other hand, improves water use efficiency with less investment. Therefore, the study emphasizes water demand managements for drought management under future changing scenarios.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Andeadis KA, Lettenmaier DP (2006) Trends in 20th century drought over the continental United States. Geophys Res Lett 33:L10403. doi:10.1029/2006GL025711

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold VI (1989) Teoria da Catástrofe. Editora Unicamp, Campinas, 154p

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnett J, Webber M, Wang M (2006) Ten key questions about the management of water in the yellow river basin. Environ Manage 38(2):179–188

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bordi I, Fraedrich K, Sutera A (2009) Observed drought and wetness trends in Europe: an update. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 13:1519–1530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bulletin of flood and drought disasters in China (2007) The bulletin of flood and drought disasters in China[in Chinese]. The office of state flood control and drought relief headquarters, Beijing. Available: http://www.mwr.gov.cn/zwzc/hygb/zgshzhgb/201201/P020120106539376681201.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2013

  • Butler D, Memon FA (2006) Water demand management. IWA Publishing, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen KL, Shi YL, Lin ZL, Wang JK, Ouyang YR, Jiang JL (2012) An approach for integrated assessment of ecorisk in coastal waters based on catastrophe theory: taking Luoyuan Bay as a case. Chin J Appl Ecol 23(1):213–221

    Google Scholar 

  • Chernenko IV (1999) Cargo cult science and the catastrophe theory. Nonlinear Anal 38:87–103

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark A (2006) Modeling the net flows of US mutual funds with stochastic catastrophe theory. Eur Phys J 50(4):659–669

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartelman PAI (1997) Stochastic catastrophe theory. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam

  • Herman B (2002) Integrated water management for the 21st century: problems and solutions. J Irrig Drain Eng 128(4):193–202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang Y, Chen X (2000) Water demand management present and development trend of china. Adv Water Sci 11(2):215–220

    Google Scholar 

  • Kounadis AN (2003) Dynamic buckling of simple two-bar frames using catastrophe theory. Int J Non-Linear Mech 37:1249–1259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kozak JJ, Benhamt CJ (1974) Denaturation: an example of a catastrophe. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 71(5):1977–1981

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lengyel A, You Z (2004) Bifurcations of SDOF mechanisms using catastrophe theory. Int J Solids Struct 41:559–568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li SF, Sun SH, Wang XY (2007) Application of catastrophe theory to risk assessment of groundwater environment for river basin. J Hydraulic Eng 38:1312–1317

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu J, Luan Y, Su L (2010) Public participation in water resources management of Haihe river basin, China: the analysis and evaluation of status quo. Procedia Environ Sci 2(1):1750–1758

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd-Hughes B, Saunders MA (2002) A drought climatology for Europe. Int J Climatol 22:1571–1592

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loehle C (1989) Catastrophe theory in ecology: a critical review and an example of the butterfly catastrophe. Ecol Model 49(1/2):125–152

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ma H, Liu L, Chen T (2010) Water security assessment in Haihe River basin using principal component analysis based on Kendall τ. Environ Monitor Assess 163:539–544

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohamed AS (2000) Water demand management in Egypt: policy objectives and strategy measures. Phys Chem Earth 25(20):243–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mrotzek M, Ossimitz G (2008) Catastrophe archetypes: using system dynamics to build an integrated systemic theory of catastrophes. The 2008 international conference of the system dynamics society, July 20–24, 2008, Athens, Greece

  • Qian Z, Chen J, Feng J (2009) From water supply management to demand management. China Water Resour 60(5):20–23

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosser JB (2007) The rise and fall of catastrophe theory applications in economics: was the baby thrown out with the bathwater? J Econ Dyn Control 31:3255–3280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saunders PT (1985) Catastrophe theory in biology. In: Capasso V, Grooso E, Paveri-Fontana SL (eds) Lecture notes in bio-mathematics 57

  • Shahid S (2008) Drought risk assessment in the western part of Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 46:391–413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shahid S, Behrawan H (2008) Drought risk assessment in the western part of Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 46(3):391–413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheffield J, Wood EF (2008) Global trends and variability in soil moisture and drought characteristics, 1950–2000, from observation-driven simulations of the terrestrial hydrologic cycle. J Clim 21(3):432

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson D (1999) Demand management theory. Water SA 25(2):115–122

    Google Scholar 

  • Su S, Li D, Yu X, Zhang Z, Zhang Q, Xiao R, Zhi J, Wu J (2011) Assessing land ecological security in Shanghai (China) based on catastrophe theory. Stoch Env Res Risk Assess 25(6):737–746

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Svorozhtsov EV, Scobeiev BY, Ganzha VG (1995) Symbolic-numerical method for the stability analysis of difference schemes on the basis of the catastrophe theory. J Comput Phys 116(1):26–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uriev NB, Trofimova LE (2008) Analysis of the formation work of surfactant molecular aggregate in the context of catastrophe theory. Colloid J 70(1):129–131

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, Liu JF, Wang GQ, He RM, Wang YC, Zhang M, Liu CS (2009) Water demand management instead of water supply management: a case study of Yulin City in northwestern China. Proceedings of JS. 3 at the Joint IAHS & IAH convention, Hyderabad, India, Sept 2009. IAHS Publ. 330, pp 340–346

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, Wang GQ, Liu CS, Bao ZX (2010) Climate change and water management adaptation for China, Xth Kovacs Colloquium, Paris, France, July, 2010. IAHS Publ. 338, pp 258–260

  • Wang W, Liu S, Zhang S, Chen J (2011a) Assessment of a model of pollution disaster in near-shore coastal waters based on catastrophe theory. Ecol Model 222(2):307–312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang C, Ni FQ, Deng Y, Jiang LL (2011b) Research on the risk associate d with rural drinking water safety based on catastrophe theory. J Water Resour Prot 3(6):356–362

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, He RM, Elmahdi A, Elsawah S, Shang MT (2011c) A strategy to deal with water crisis under climate change for mainstream in the middle reaches of yellow river. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 16(5):555–565

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, Liu JF, He RM, Liu CS, Wang YC (2011d) Discussion on evaluating the fairness of domestic water use in China. J Nat Resour 26(2):328–334

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, Liu JF, Wang GQ, Rui MH, Elmahdi A, Elsawah S (2011e) Water resources planning and management based on system dynamics: a case study of Yulin city. Environ Dev Sustain 13(2):331–351

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, Shahid S, Amgad E, He R-M (2012) Water resources management strategy for adaptation to droughts in China. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change. doi:10.1007/s11027-011-9352-4

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang XJ, Zhang JY, Shahid S, Xia XH, He RM, Shang MT (2013) Catastrophe theory to assess water security and adaptation strategy in the context of environmental change. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change. doi:10.1007/s11027-012-9443-x

    Google Scholar 

  • Weidlich W, Huebner H (2008) Dynamics of political opinion formation including catastrophe theory. J Econ Behav Organ 67:1–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wenyu D, Ghose S (2006) A dynamic nonlinear model of online retail competition using cusp catastrophe theory. J Bus Res 59:838–848

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yan C, Xu G, Zuo Y (2006) Destabilization analysis of overlapping underground chambers induced by blasting vibration with catastrophe theory. Trans Nonferrous Met Soc China 16:735–740

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang F, Shao D, Xiao C (2012) Assessment of urban water security based on catastrophe theory. Water Sci Technol 6693:487–493

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zeeman EC (1977) Catastrophe theory. Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam, p 1977

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang H (2005) Strategic study for water management in China. Southeast University Press, Nanjing

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao Z, Xiang C (2002) The application of catastrophe theory in environmental forecast. Environ Monit China 18(4):61–63

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51309155), National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2010CB951104 and 2010CB951103), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (No. 2013M530027), Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund (No. Y513004) and Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin (China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research) (No. IWHR-SKL-201212) for providing financial support for this research. We are also thankful to anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Nanjing, 210029, China

    Xiao-jun Wang, Jian-yun Zhang & Rui-min He

  2. Research Center for Climate Change, Ministry of Water Resources, Nanjing, 210029, China

    Xiao-jun Wang, Jian-yun Zhang & Rui-min He

  3. State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xiao-jun Wang & Xing-hui Xia

  4. Department of Planning and Programming, Ministry of Water Resources, Beijing, 100053, China

    Xue-wei Tong

  5. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

    Shahid Shamsuddin

Authors
  1. Xiao-jun Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jian-yun Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Xue-wei Tong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Shahid Shamsuddin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Rui-min He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Xing-hui Xia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiao-jun Wang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Wang, Xj., Zhang, Jy., Tong, Xw. et al. Mechanism and comprehensive countermeasure for drought management from the view of catastrophe theory. Nat Hazards 71, 823–835 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0915-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0915-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation