Disasters that occur in one place can trigger costs in cities across the world due to the interconnectedness of the global urban trade network. In fact, these secondary impacts can be three times greater than the local impacts, a Yale study finds.
When cyclones and other natural disasters strike a city or town, the social and economic impacts locally can be devastating. But these events also have ripple effects that can be felt in distant cities and regions — even globally — due to the interconnectedness of the world’s urban trade networks.
In fact, a new study by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies finds that local economic impacts — such as damage to factories and production facilities — can trigger secondary impacts across the city’s production and trade network. For the largest storms, they report, these impacts can account for as much as three-fourths of the total damage.
According to their findings, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, the extent of these secondary costs depends more on the structure of the production and supply networks for a particular city than on its geographic location. Regional cities that are dependent on their urban network for industrial supplies — and that have access to relatively few suppliers— are most vulnerable to these secondary impacts. Larger, global cities such as New York and Beijing, meanwhile, are more insulated from risks.
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