Estimating the insurance rates for loss of annual production of grass herbage associated with natural disasters in China
2015
Liu, Xing-peng | Zhang, Ji-quan | Cai, Wei-ying | Bao, Yu-long
Grasslands in many parts of China are vulnerable to natural disasters which can bring large economic losses to pastoralists. As an effective method to manage the risk, insurance has gradually become an important means used in the management of grassland disasters. Because of insufficient statistical data on annual production of grass herbage, insurance-rate-making has become the core challenge in grassland insurance programs in China. Taking Xilingol League in Inner Mongolia as the study area, by analysing the correlations of different vegetation indices with annual production of grass herbage, a spatial Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based insurance rate was estimated for the loss of annual production of grass herbage in three steps: (i) the annual NDVIs in mid-to-late August were obtained using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products and, applying a relationship developed between remote-sensing data and measured grass herbage mass, annual production of grass herbage was estimated, (ii) the Relative Fluctuation Production (RFP) was estimated from trend and fluctuating data on the annual production of grass herbage, and (iii) applying kernel density estimation, the insurance rate of loss of annual production of grass herbage was calculated based on the RFP in each cell of the study area. This approach to estimating the insurance rate for loss of annual production of grass herbage associated with natural disasters can improve the ability of pastoralists to manage their grasslands more effectively.
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