Assessment of lightning-related damage and disruption in Canada |
| |
| Authors: | Brian Mills Dan Unrau Laurel Pentelow Kelsey Spring |
| |
| Institution: | (1) Adaptation and Impacts Research Division, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment Canada, c/o Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada;(2) Environment Canada, Canadian Lightning Detection Network, Richmond, BC, Canada |
| |
| Abstract: | This article assesses the extent and costs of lightning-related damage and disruption in Canada. Lightning routinely damages
property and disrupts economic and social activities. Affected sectors include health; property and casualty insurance; forestry;
electricity generation, transmission, and distribution; agriculture; telecommunications; transportation; and tourism and recreation—the
first four sectors are the most important in terms of contributing to overall impacts and costs. Secondary data and extrapolations
from U.S. studies were used to develop cost estimates for the health, property, forestry, and electricity sectors. Aggregated,
annual lightning-related damage and disruption costs in Canada range from CA$600 million to CA$600 million to CA1 billion. Forestry and electricity
damages accounted for over 85% of the total. The estimates are both preliminary and conservative. In terms of continued research,
additional or more refined studies using Canadian empirical data are warranted for the insurance and electricity sectors.
Detailed insurance claim or outage data would permit analysis at the storm level and potentially discern finer-scaled risk
patterns. Further effort is also required to evaluate risk or damage prevention measures, particularly those that relate to
expanded or enriched use of the Canadian Lightning Detection Network data by both public and private sector clients. Both
the degree of adoption and efficacy or cost-effectiveness should be investigated. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
