Assessment of rice yield loss due to torrential rain: a case study of Yuhang County, Zhejiang Province, China

This study adopts a loss assessment and indemnity approach for rice crops at risk of flooding in Yuhang County, Zhejiang Province. Employing a hydrological model for simulating floods and a reduction model for predicting rice yield, the relationship between the rate of reduction in the rice yield and precipitation is discussed. We argue that the yield reduction rate can be assessed according to the amount of precipitation and designed a weather-based indemnity index for agricultural insurance purposes in Zhejiang Province. With geographic information system technology, the yield reduction rate and weather-based indemnity index were refined and found to effectively reduce the shortcomings of traditional agricultural insurance, i.e., moral hazard, large error in assessing disaster loss and high basis risk. The validity of the method was verified by the amount of rice lost due to No. 16 typhoon Krosa in 2007, and the results show that the proposed method can well simulate the reduction rate of rice yield according to precipitation data. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012