Increasing Extreme Precipitation Polarizes Spatial Patterns of Flood Risks in China

The ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter’ (DDWW) paradigm for a warming climate has been widely accepted. It remains a question whether this polarization trend holds for flood risk, as it is affected by multifold driving factors besides precipitation. Here we perform a China-wide analysis of precipitation-induced flood risk by considering daily precipitation records covering 2,165 stations during 1960-2020. Our findings show that 8.1% and 15.8% of stations registered a polarization of existing patterns, i.e., DDWW and ‘high-risk gets higher and low-risk gets lower’ (HHLL), compared to 9.2% and 12.7% transforming to the opposite pattern from 1980 to 2020.