Evaluation of Tropical Cyclone Disaster Loss Using Machine Learning Algorithms with an eXplainable Artificial Intelligence Approach

In the context of global warming, tropical cyclones (TCs) have garnered significant attention as one of the most severe natural disasters in China, particularly in terms of assessing the disaster losses. This study aims to evaluate the TC disaster loss (TCDL) using machine learning (ML) algorithms and identify the impact of specific feature factors on the prediction of model with an eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) approach, SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). The results show that LightGBM outperforms Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Naive Bayes (NB) for estimating the TCDL grades, achieving the highest accuracy value of 0.86. According to the SHAP values, the three most important factors in the LightGBM classifier model are proportion of stations with rainfall exceeding 50 mm (ProRain), maximum wind speed (MaxWind), and maximum daily rainfall (MaxRain). Specifically, in the estimation of high TCDL grade, events characterized with MaxWind exceeding 30 m/s, MaxRain exceeding 200 mm, and ProRain exceeding 30% tend to exhibit a higher susceptibility to TC disaster due to positive SHAP values. This study offers a valuable tool for decision-makers to develop scientific strategies in the risk management of TC disaster.