JOURNAL BOLIVIANO DE CIENCIAS – Vol. 20 – Número 56
ISSN Digital: 2075-8944 ISSN Impreso: 2075-8936
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experienced a range of natural disasters since 2015, with signicant economic
and human impacts (Chou, J., Dong, W., Tu, G., Xu, Y., 2020). For example,
in 2016, severe ooding aected 32 million people, causing extensive damage to
infrastructure and agriculture (Lai, Y., Li, J., Gu, X., Chen, Y. D., Kong, D., Gan,
T. Y., Wu, G., 2020). Moreover, in 2020, Yangtze River oods were devastating,
displacing millions and causing billions of dollars in damage (Niu, Y., Touma, D.,
Ting, M., Camargo, S. J., Chen, R., 2022).
7.3.3 Oman and the UAE
The Gulf Council Countries(GCC), including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman,
Kuwait, and Bahrain, have also faced natural disasters, although their impacts have
varied. Oman, for instance, was hit by several severe tropical cyclones. Cyclone
Mekunu, in 2018, is one example of them. It caused widespread ooding and
signicant damage to infrastructure. To add, in early October 2021, Cyclone
Shaheen tracked Westward across the far Northern Arabian Sea, penetrated the
Gulf of Oman, and made landfall along the Northeast Oman coastline (Terry, J., Al
Ruheili, A., Boldi, R., Gienko, G., Stahl, H., 2022). Shaheen was a unique Tropical
Cyclone (TC) formed on 30th September 2021, on the Saurashtra coast o Gujrat,
from another cyclone Gulab o the Bay of Bengal. Under the inuence of warm
waters, this one-of-a-kind storm travelled westwards, skirting Pakistan’s Makran
coast before making landfall on Northern Oman on 4th October 2021 (Mukherjee,
P., Ramakrishnan, B., 2023). This storm event represented a unique trajectory, as it
was the rst of its kind to occur in the region in more than 130 years (Terry, J., Al
Ruheili, A., Boldi, R., Gienko, G., & Stahl, H., 2022).
Dierently, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an unprecedented amount of
rainfall was recorded on April 15th, 2024, surpassing all previous daily rainfall
records observed over the past 75 years. In a study conducted by Almazroui, M.,
Khalid, M. S., Islam, M. N., Rehman, S., Sajjad, H. (2020); the researchers argue
that the central region of the Arabian Peninsula will experience higher temperatures
across all seasons throughout the 21st century, providing valuable information for
long-term regional planning. The study investigated the seasonal, inter-seasonal,
and regional changes in temperature, as well as the associated uncertainties.
8. RESULTS
This study addressed two critical research questions that arise from the profound
eects of hurricanes and tropical cyclones. First, it investigated the key social
and economic risks posed by these disasters, exploring how these risks vary
across dierent regions and communities such as the USA, China, Oman and the
UAE. It aimed to uncover patterns and disparities in vulnerability and resilience,
oering a comprehensive understanding of how such events impact human lives,
infrastructure and economics. As a result, the review of the 84 articles provided a
comprehensive analysis of the impacts of climate change on nature. The analysis
of the studies showed that climate change has intensied tropical cyclones in terms
of both intensity and rainfall rates (Walsh, K. J., McBride, J. L., Klotzbach, P. J.,
Balachandran, S., Camargo, S. J., Holland, G., Sugi, M., 2016). Particularly in
the North Atlantic, an increase in Category 3 or higher storms has been observed,
with projections suggesting a rise under "+2 ºC" warming scenario (Knutson, T. R.,
Chung, M. V., Vecchi, G., Sun, J., Hsieh, T. L., Smith, A. J., 2021). Additionally,