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After the earthquake in Wenchuan in 2008, landslides have been happening frequently, causing a buildup of sediment in slopes and gullies. This creates a potential for mudslides and flash floods. It is important to create a model to assess the likelihood of landslides in Wenchuan County for disaster prevention. This study focuses on Wenchuan County, using 6180 co-seismic landslide sites as data. The relevant survey data is combined, and slope, normalized difference vegetation Index (NDVI), peak seismic acceleration (PGA), stream power index (SPI), topographic wetness index (TWI), distance from the road, distance from the fault, distance from the water system, relief intensity, aspect, curvature, land use type, and lithologic characters are chosen. The significance of the co-seismic landslide key influence factors is discussed. The study area's disaster susceptibility was assessed using the informative hierarchical analysis method model (I-AHP) and fully connected neural network (FCNN) model; the evaluation's findings mostly agreed with the survey's actual findings. The study's findings demonstrated that: (1) the FCNN model's AUC value was 0.910, while the I-AHP model's AUC value was 0.768, and the ROC curve and AUC value analysis indicated that the FCNN model outperformed the I-AHP model. (2) The three most significant influencing factors are lithology, topographic relief, and distance from roads; they account for 29.5%, 11%, and 10% of the total, respectively. Thus, landslide hazard research should be done in the high terrain undulating areas surrounding the road, and rock monitoring should be intensified in post-earthquake landslide-prone areas like Wenchuan County. (3) Given that Yingxiu Town is the epicentre of the region and that landslide disasters are highly likely to occur there, technical support for landslide disaster prediction, forecasting, safe prevention, and control in the area needs to be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Multi-Temporal Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (MT-InSAR) technology is adopted to monitor the Line of Sight (LOS) displacement of Fushun West Opencast Coal Mine (FWOCM) and its surrounding areas in northeast China using Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images acquired from 2018 to 2022. The spatial-temporal evolution of urban subsidence and the south-slope landslide are both analyzed in detail. Comparison with ground measurements and cross-correlation analysis via cross wavelet transform with monthly precipitation data are also conducted, to analyze the influence factors of displacements in FWOCM. The monitoring results show that a subsidence basin appeared in the urban area near the eastern part of the north slope in 2018, with settlement center located at the intersection of E3000 and fault F1. The Qian Tai Shan (QTS) landslide on the south slope, which experienced rapid sliding during 2014 to 2016, presents seasonal deceleration and acceleration with precipitation, with the maximum displacement in vicinity of the Liushan paleochannel. The results of this paper have fully taken in account for the complications of large topographic relief, geological conditions, spatial distribution and temporal evolution characteristics of surface displacements in opencast mining area. The wide range and long time series dynamic monitoring of opencast mine are of great significance to ensure mine safety production and geological disaster prevention in the investigated mining area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide a design basis for engineering disaster prevention and mitigation by accurately describing the spatial distribution of soil liquefaction. A group of in-situ Cone Penetration Tests (CPT) was conducted to evaluate the seabed soil properties and liquefaction potential of the Yellow River Subaquatic Delta. The factor of safety against liquefaction (FSL) and liquefaction potential index (LPI) were utilized to investigate the liquefaction characteristics of seabed soils. The findings are as follows: (1) The delta is "near coarse and far fine," with sand and silt dominating the onshore direction and silt and silty clay dominating the offshore direction; (2) Silt, as a structured soil, has a maximum sensitivity of 10, and there are local liquefaction phenomena. The size of a Soil behavior type index can be used as the limit value of liquefaction discrimination in the region; (3) The FSL of the shallow layer is smaller, while that of the deep layer is generally larger. The FSL near the coast is smaller than that far from the coast, but its variation range is large, indicating that the shallow soil layer near the coast is more prone to liquefaction; (4) The LPI of the delta is less than 5, which is significantly affected by the wave cycle loads and geographical environment. Liquefaction can occur, but the probability of large-scale liquefaction is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore what the travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal about the changing geographies of mobilities and the making of homo sacer, the latter constituted through differentiated control of mobilities. Implemented to protect U.S. public health, travel restrictions imposed on travelers from Mainland China during the early days of the pandemic exemplify how sovereign power that declares a state of emergency and creates bare life can be readily applied to groups of people who previously had privileged access to global mobility. In this sense, bare life does not refer to fixed and disadvantaged social categories but is rather contingently and contextually constituted, through the works of hybrid sovereign regimes. At the same time, however, these travelers are not reduced to a state of zero-agency but reside within a liminal space between soft and hard cosmopolitanisms, as they can still deploy agency and cosmopolitan capital to achieve certain degrees of mobility. By examining how Chinese travelers navigated various travel restrictions and the constantly changing policies to travel to the U.S., this paper explores new spaces of exception and forms of bare life, and argues that homo sacer is dynamically, relationally and recursively constructed, both through apparatus of control and the agency of travelers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This study aimed to provide greater insight into the characteristics of severe and extraordinarily severe gas explosion accidents (SESGEAs). Methods. The study analyzed the accident characteristics and causes of SESGEAs. As an example, we conducted a specialized case analysis using the 24Model (fourth edition) on the recent Baoma coal mine gas explosion. Results. SESGEA data are characterized by greater volatility, with significant differences in the geographical distribution, temporal distribution and attributed characteristics of the accidents. From the accident analysis: chaotic ventilation management was the most serious accident cause of SESGEAs; unsafe acts related to ventilation operations accounted for 18.51% of all unsafe acts; coal miners lack professional safety knowledge and have a serious fluke mentality in mining work; enterprises have insufficient enforcement of safety procedure documents, and lack of attention to the allocation of underground human resources and safety training systems; and the importance of safety, the role of the safety department and satisfaction with safety facilities have become the most serious missing items of safety culture. Conclusion. This study can provide important data support and management basis to assist mine operators in developing more targeted accident prevention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2022, prolonged periods of extreme heat waves fueled huge wildfires across the globe. While research has shown that past experience with wildfire increases homeowners' intentions to adopt fire mitigation activities, little is known about whether the impact of disaster can be long-lasting and represent a stable behavioral change. Thus, the current work explored whether Chinese homeowners' intentions to perform fire wise actions would change over time. In Study 1, we compared responses of residents in a fire-stricken area with those of residents in a nondisaster area three days after a massive wildfire. It was found that participants who had just experienced a wildfire reported a stronger intent to take fire mitigation on both self-report and behavioral measures. Study 2 involved a follow-up survey that took place in the same areas one month after the fire had occurred. The results showed that participants in these two areas demonstrated no differences in intentions to implement fire mitigation measures, which suggests that the impact of disasters decayed over time. Combined, these findings suggest that past experience with wildfire will likely give rise to stronger intention to engage in mitigation behavior but this effect may diminish with time ticking away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: China employed a unique volunteerism system where health care providers outside of Hubei Province, the epicentre, travelled to reverse the devastation wrought by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) at its global onset. The aim is to study the unique circumstances of Chinese volunteerism in the context of continuing pandemic threats, specifically exploring the experiences of 20 Chinese nurse and physician volunteers fighting COVID-19 during the outbreak. Methods: Interviews were done through video calling. Results: Using content analysis with a hermeneutic perspective, emerging patterns showed the ways in which China's particular manifestation of volunteerism teaches us how to engage global threats of this nature. The overarching lesson, For the Good of the People, was manifested in several dynamic and overlapping themes: 1) Reaching for Professional Standards Even in Crisis; 2) Constantly Caring Through Failures and Successes; and 3) Holding Fast to the Common Good. The devastation was met by the resilience of volunteers, who overcame profound challenges managing patient care. Conclusions: Volunteerism required sacrifice and tremendous support in the form of training and administrative direction, family support, and peer collaboration. Volunteers' physical and psychosocial wellbeing was a priority. Recognizing the representative themes can help societies plan for continuing and future events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few tourism studies have focused on tourists who have been victims of a disaster. Their destination attachment has implications for re-establishment of market confidence and resilience. Structural equation modelling of data from 242 tourists who were victims of the Jiuzhaigou earthquake was used to explore their feelings of attachment. The results confirm that earthquake-affected tourists can generate positive emotional attachment toward the destination. Destination attachment is related to such factors as positive emotions, social support, and severity of disaster exposure. Positive emotions mediate the relationships between severity of disaster exposure, social support and destination attachment. It is revealed that experiences of a disaster event can be a turning point, prompting positive change in tourist-destination relationships across the destination life-cycle. Implications for emergency management and for post-disaster market recovery are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public sectors typically learn from crises, providing them the opportunity to improve the performance of crisis management. Through thematic analysis, this study maps out the evolution process of China's pandemic response and emergency management systems and summarizes the characteristics of China's crisis learning process, crisis learning subject, and crisis learning content. The findings indicate that China's pandemic response and emergency management systems have the characteristics of crisis learning with gradual adjustments and continuous innovation. Specifically, under the impetus of China's political factors, its pandemic response and emergency management systems have been able to learn from crises and have a complete crisis learning process. This crisis learning process includes adaptive learning, as well as single, double, and triple-loop learning. There is also a clear selection preference at various government levels, corresponding crisis learning processes and stages, and the path dependence of crisis learning content. Moreover, political accountability, attention, and pressure are the key factors opening the window of crisis learning, but the decision-making authority is the decisive factor of crisis learning in China's centralized context. This study provides a theoretical framework for understanding the evolution and changes in the government's crisis learning model and puts forward policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most important urban infrastructure systems, the road network plays a vital role in post-earthquake emergency response. Quantitative evaluation of the emergency response functionality of road network under earthquakes can provide decision support for emergency planning and future construction. In this paper, a novel network performance metric is proposed to consider both the special traffic demand in emergency response and the supply capability of road network. On this basis, an integrated probabilistic assessment framework for post-earthquake network emergency response functionality is presented, considering various uncertainties. In the framework, a penalty-based approach is proposed to consider the impact of partially degraded links on network functionality. At last, the proposed methodology is illustrated on the road network of Tangshan city, China, under different seismic scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a large industrial country where tropical meteorological disasters occur frequently. Therefore, natural-technological (Natech) risk cannot be ignored. Assessing the social vulnerability of an industrial city prone to tropical meteorological disaster-induced Natechs is urgent. To analyze the social vulnerability of such cities, we propose a Bayesian network (BN)-based method to model the social vulnerability framework. Natech is characterised by high-consequence and low-probability. The industrial cities in Southeast China are selected as a case study. The Monte Carlo method simulates the data generated in industrial cities suffering from tropical disaster-induced Natechs, and the conditional probability tables of BN descendant nodes are obtained by the expert scoring method. After sensitivity analysis, we conclude that the 'catastrophic index of tropical cyclones,' 'population density,' and 'prevention capacity' have important impacts on social vulnerability. Human traits, the social environment, and the economy play important roles in social vulnerability assessments. Therefore, reducing the catastrophic index of tropical cyclones and population density and strengthening prevention capacity management measures are necessary. Some suggestions obtained after sensitivity analysis can assist governments in improving disaster prevention and mitigation abilities and formulating urban planning policies for sustainable development. Highlights Industry city's vulnerability analysis for Natural-technological (Natech) accidents A social vulnerability assessment framework for sustainable development A Bayesian network combined with the Monte Carlo simulation data and expert judgment Risk management for high-consequence and low-probability events [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green macroalgae bloom (GMB), with the dominant species of Ulva prolifera, has regularly occurred since 2007 along the China coast. Although disaster prevention and control achieved favorable results in 2020, the satellite-observed GMB annual maximum coverage (AMC) rebounded sharply in 2021 to an unprecedented level. The reasons for this rebound and the significant interannual variability over past 15 years are still open questions. Here, by using long-term time-series (2007–2022) optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite observations (1000+ scenes), meteorological data and water quality statistics, the mechanism analysis was performed by exploring effects from natural factors and human activities. Two key determinants for AMC are successfully identified from numerous potential factors which are the macroalgae distribution in a key area (the Subei Shoal) during a critical period (from April to May 20) and the nutrient availability. Furthermore, by using these two parameters, a novel model for AMC prediction (R2 = 0.87, p < 0.01) is proposed and independently validated, which can reasonably explain the significant interannual variability (2014–2021) and agree well with the latest observation in 2022 (percentage difference 12%). Finally, suggestions are proposed for future disaster prevention and alleviation. This work may aid future bloom prediction and management measure optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flash floods are one of the most serious mountain disasters in Linzhi, China, pose a grave threat to the lives and property of the residents. However, the current regional vulnerability research cannot meet the needs of refined disaster prevention and mitigation in mountainous areas. Therefore, to address this knowledge gap, this study presented a vulnerability assessment framework base on spatialization technique along with the triangular fuzzy number-based analytic hierarchy process (TFN-AHP) and random forest (RF) model. To achieve this goal, an assessment system containing 12 indicators was constructed from the three perspectives of exposure, susceptibility and coping capacity. Firstly, factor spatialization is introduced in data preprocessing. Then TFN-AHP and the RF model were used to calculate the exposure, susceptibility, and coping capacity. Finally, the spatial distribution of the vulnerability throughout Linzhi was obtained. According to the results, the exposure, susceptibility and coping capacity in most areas are extremely low and low, accounting for 74.1%, 99% and 99%, respectively. The vulnerability is similar to the exposure that most of the regions have extremely low vulnerability and low vulnerability, accounting for 83.5%. The moderate vulnerability regions account for 8.5%, and the high vulnerability regions account for only 1%. The assessment results show that highexposure areas mainly exhibit a linear distribution, and mainly include river valleys, cultivated land, and residential areas. Obviously, these areas are mainly distributed in the population and economic agglomeration areas and on low-altitude terrain. The distribution of high and comparatively high vulnerability zones, where economic and human activities are considerably high, are closely to the topography of the catchment. Thus, the results of this study provide scientific and technological evidence for resettlement, population distribution adjustment, and prevention and mitigation of flash floods in Linzhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of LHB: Hydroscience Journal is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Flash flood is one of the most devastating types of disasters. Roads are linear strip structures exposed to the natural environment and they are vulnerable to damage when flash flood occurs. Thus, an accurate assessment of flash flood vulnerability for roads is mandatory for the improvement of transportation flash flood forecasting and warnings. In this study, we constructed an assessment model for assessing the flash flood vulnerability of roads based on their exposure and disaster reduction capability. Then, considering the mechanism of flash floods acting on the road, we preliminarily established an index system with analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and used a support vector machine (SVM) to aggregate the indices. The use of SVM avoids the subjectivity of vulnerability evaluation. The Assessment results showed that 4.29% of the land area has high or extremely high vulnerability. The moderate vulnerability areas accounted for 5.19% of the land area. The low and extremely low vulnerability areas accounted for 15.81% of the land area; and the land area with no roads accounted for 43.94%. The suburban areas with dense roads in the southeast and the areas near the main roads in the northwest, had high and extremely high vulnerability. The low and extremely low vulnerability areas are mainly distributed in the areas with sparse roads and close to cities. The results of this study satisfy the need for the high precision and large-scale evaluation of flash flood vulnerability of roads. Based on the results of the vulnerability assessment, different disaster prevention and reduction measures should be taken in the northwest and southeast. The northwestern region should attach importance to the construction of roads and improve the disaster prevention and reduction system; while the southeastern region should plan layout and construction of new roads rationally and enhance the disaster resistance of existing roads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the relationship between CEO early-life natural disaster experience and corporate innovation. As China has a strict household registration system, we measure CEOs' early-life natural disaster experience via defining CEOs' birthplaces based on their official ID and linking it to the Chinese natural disaster database. We find that firms with CEOs who were exposed to natural disasters are less innovative. Importantly, we use textual analysis techniques to document two possible channels through which CEO natural disasters experience to stymie corporate innovation: CEO shortsightedness and risk-averse. Our results are robust to the instrumental variable approach, alternative definitions of early-life time windows and innovation, as well as difference-in-differences test based on CEO turnover events. Taken together, this study sheds light on the relationship between natural disasters and management's myopia behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying and assessing the disaster risk of landslide-prone regions is very critical for disaster prevention and mitigation. Owning to their special advantages, neural network algorithms have been widely used for landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) in recent decades. In the present study, three advanced neural network models popularly used in relevant studies, i.e. artificial neural network (ANN), one dimensional convolutional neural network (1D CNN) and recurrent neural network (RNN), were evaluated and compared for LSM practice over the Qingchuan County, Sichuan province, China. Extensive experimental results demonstrated satisfactory performances of these three neural network models in accurately predicting susceptible regions. Specifically, ANN and 1D CNN models yielded quite consistent LSM results but slightly differed from those of RNN model spatially. Nevertheless, accuracy evaluations revealed that the RNN model outperformed the other two models both qualitatively and quantitatively but its complexity was relatively high. Experiments concerning training hyper-parameters on the performance of neural network models for LSM suggested that relatively small batch size values with Tanh activation function and SGD optimizer are essential to improve the performance of neural network models for LSM, which may provide a thread to help those who apply these advanced algorithms to improve their efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese national emergency warning system has been officially launched since 2015 to provide multi-hazard warnings to the public, but its efficiency and effectiveness remain unclear. Based on a dataset of 914 samples collected short after a hazardous convective weather event in Qingdao, this paper investigates the dissemination efficiency and behavior-changing effectiveness of various warning communication approaches used in the Chinese system. The results show that the total reception rate of meteorological warnings was 36%, yet to be improved. Out of the three communication approaches, direct transmission by officials was the most effective in fostering risk perception and stimulating behavior, but exhibited the lowest dissemination efficiency. Social diffusion also played a vital role in warning dissemination, followed by media relaying, but both lacked cognitive and behavioral effectiveness. Environmental cues served as an important source supplemental to meteorological warnings, but were subject to a high level of uncertainty and inconsistency. Finally, gender, age and education level of the warning recipients were found to influence the dissemination efficiency and behavioral effectiveness of the three warning approaches to varied extent. These results are partially consistent with previous findings in countries with well-developed warning systems, but shed light on the areas for further improvement of the Chinese warning system, as well as the establishment of efficient and effective new warning systems in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of infectious disease outbreaks has been accelerating over the past two decades, from the SARS epidemic in 2003 to COVID-19 in 2020. Termed by some as the twenty-first century's first pandemic, SARS originated in China and alerted the country to the importance of public health and epidemic response. After SARS, China improved its health infrastructure and reformed its political and legal health governance system. The emergence of COVID-19 from Wuhan in late 2019 put those reforms to the test. This paper analyses China's public health and epidemic response policies from a historical perspective, tracing the evolution of Chinese public health policies after the SARS outbreak in 2003. This paper assesses China's response to COVID-19 and how post-SARS policy reforms, particularly in epidemic response, played out on the ground in Wuhan. What policies worked well? What were the challenges faced? Based on the policy analysis, this paper presents recommendations for how China can improve its epidemic response through strengthened infectious disease surveillance, more transparent political coordination, and expanded public health infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore a suitable method for analyzing road transport accidents that involve hazardous materials and to explore the main factors that influence the occurrence of accidents of varying severity.Methods: The 2015-2019 reported crash data from the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China were obtained, and road transport crashes involving hazardous materials were extracted as the analysis data. The dataset was classified into three injury severity categories: property damage only (PDO), injured (INJ), and fatal (FAT). A statistical model and three machine learning-based models were developed: a random parameters logit model (RPLM), multilayer perceptron (MLP), decision tree C5.0 (C5.0) and support vector machine (SVM). The four models were trained/estimated using the training/estimation dataset, and the best model was used to model accidents of the three different severity levels. The main factors that influence the occurrence of accidents at each crash severity level were obtained.Results: C5.0 had the best modeling performance. The direct accident form (DAF), indirect accident form (IAF) and road segment (RS) were determined to be the critical determinants of PDO accidents. The DAF, IAF, road type, RS and time had a substantial effect on INJ accidents. The DAF, IAF, hazardous material type (HMT) and road surface condition were important factors in the occurrence of FAT accidents.Conclusions: Different data have unique characteristics, and the best modeling and analysis method should be chosen accordingly. The safety of road transport of hazardous materials in China is poor, and the losses caused by accidents are substantial. Strengthening the monitoring of travel speed and travel time; improving driver safety awareness, driving skills and the ability to mitigate emergencies; improving the configuration of vehicle safety equipment and the linkage with the control center and rescue center; improving the environmental differences between inside a tunnel and outside a tunnel; reducing the design of long downhill and steep slope sections; reducing the transport plan in unsafe environments; and improving the ability of road management to mitigate bad environments can be effective measures to reduce the severity of road transport accidents involving hazardous materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency management plays an increasingly important role in the context of China's economic transformation. This article studies the impact of risk perception consumer behavior on pricing strategies of the supplier and the retailer in a dyadic supply chain with emergency-dependent demand. The supplier, as a Stackelberg leader, specifies the wholesale price to the retailer, based on which, the retailer, who faces a market with an emergency, makes the optimal retail price as a response. In this setting, consumers are loss-averse and their utilities vary with the type and the intensity of emergency due to consumers' risk perception behavior. In addition, two types of information, consumer's demand and emergency intensity, are assumed to be possessed by the retailer and the supplier, respectively. How information sharing affects both sides' pricing strategies is also analyzed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The healthcare system and service capacity are overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a substantial unmet need for rehabilitation service to all patients affected by Covid-19 directly or indirectly. This article aims to describe how to rapidly reconfigure and bring rehabilitation services back during the pandemic. The Steer committee meeting was held for the development of a strategic preparedness plan and safety management based on principles and evidence of rehabilitation, which will lead to effective mitigation of consequences resulted from Covid-19. Five measures were taken in Southwest China during the pandemic, which includes the "First contact responsibility" and management system; the full-coverage system for nosocomial infection control; the "Closed-off management" system; the full-coverage system for body temperature monitoring; the adoption of 5G-based telerehabilitation. With the implementation of these measures, the capacity and capability were enhanced to safely reopen and operate rehabilitation facilities in Southwest China. Further measurement of quality of care and outcomes during and beyond the pandemic is needed in transforming the healthcare system and improving rehabilitation services. Hopefully, the positive message conveyed by this paper could encourage and support communities and the society of physical medicine and rehabilitation worldwide during this challenging time. Rehabilitation services are essential and there is an unmet need posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. A feasible strategic plan and safety management measures are critical to reconfigure the capacity and capability of rehabilitation services suspended by Covid-19. The adoption of tele-rehabilitation technology has the potential to reshape public health emergency responses and the delivery of care. Measurement of quality and outcomes is of great importance to inform transformation and adaptation of rehabilitation services during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The administrative accountability system in China has evolved during public health crises. By holding public officials accountable, the system hopes to improve their performance during emergencies. However, Covid-19 exposed an unexpected effect of the system. Instead of incentivizing public officials to take responsibility, it may have discouraged them from making timely, but potentially risky, decisions. Based on a holistic case analysis of the early response in Wuhan city, the authors demonstrate the lessons learnt and a way to improve the system. The case adds to an increasing academic literature on responsible risk-taking behaviours and decisions under uncertainties, extending the academic discussion by providing the critical contextual information for such behaviours and decisions in China. Tolerating decision errors under uncertainty can improve early responses to public health emergencies like Covid-19 in China. This article shows that integrating an error-tolerance mechanism in an evolving accountability system can encourage responsible risk-taking by governmental officials. A well-designed error-tolerance mechanism that distinguishes between errors to tolerate and errors to punish can encourage proactive actions and prevent tardiness under threat of an incoming infectious disease. Readers who can benefit from this study include policy-makers and managers in government, especially those who work in infectious disease prevention and response, emergency management, or any other public services in which decisions under uncertainties are common. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the outbreak of the COVID-19, China had to declare a public health emergency within a short time. In order to control and prevent further spread of the disease, China activated the highest emergency response level and has been implementing many draconian measures based on the Law on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases (LPTID). However, the LPTID lacks a disability perspective and overlooks the needs of people with disabilities during emergencies to a large extent. Combining the law and disability perspectives, this article analyzes different Articles of the LPTID and points out its inadequacies regarding the emergency preparedness and response plans in the midst of a major public health crisis. Besides, the experiences of some people with disabilities being affected are shared in the article. This article calls for nations to ensure amendments of their legal frameworks regarding public health and emergency preparedness fully engage a rights-based disability perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, sub-provincial governments are responsible for managing public health emergencies. In the context of coordinating multiple stakeholders, the role of the local government can be defined as 'meta-governance'. It shall provide rules to facilitate collective action and co-produce quality public services. However, the case of Wuhan suggests that some local governments still rely on the traditional administrative system, which hampers them in terms of issuing a sufficient response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Three measures can be taken to facilitate a public governance mechanism in public health emergency management. First, local governments can use the ICTs to create a more transparent information mechanism. The free flow of information could alert all stakeholders to potential emergencies, while the open government data form the base for cross-border collaboration. Second, a more comprehensive Public Health Emergency Preparedness is constructive for local governments in making quality and immediate decisions. This preparedness shall clearly define the responsibility of the involved agencies based on a careful evaluation of their qualification and capability. Third, the local government shall note that good governance requires more than an executive capacity based on command-and-control. It is necessary to develop the ability to work with stakeholders outside the bureaucratic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The all-round and multilevel responses to the epidemic, with professional medical institutions, the governments and the public as the main agents of response and the media as the bridge of communication, are key to developing the public health emergency management system with regard to emerging infectious diseases and diseases with unknown etiology in the information age. This study creates an analysis framework concerning the five dimensions of information—the epidemic itself and the medical, governmental, public and media responses—and analyzes the evolution, interaction and trends of five dimensions using big data within the period of observation For the four dimensions other than the media response, the level of information related to the epidemic and the medical response is relatively high, while the level of response by medical institutions and the governments are similar, and both are higher than the public response. The media coverage of the epidemic remains at a high level of information. In relation to such diseases, the government should take the role of big data analytics seriously, lead a multi-agent social collaboration network, and further strengthen the 'One Planning Plus Three Systems' framework related to emergency management in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the scale and frequency of disasters continues to intensify, public administration programs in both China and the United States are increasingly acknowledging the importance of integrating emergency management into public administration education. After briefly reviewing and comparing their respective emergency management systems, this study describes the development of emergency management in the field of public administration in both countries. Using data collected from multiple sources, this study provides a synopsis of emergency management education within public administration programs in China and compares its progress, development, and challenges with the American emergency management programs. While the development of emergency management education is driven by practical needs and national initiatives, in China it remains in its development stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the Journal of Applied Communication Research is focused on communication and resilience. The issue contains seven articles that consider communicative aspects of individual, family, organizational, community, and national resilience. Included articles examine: resilience and relational load among families of dual earning couples; parental emotion coaching and adolescent resilience in families of harmful and non-harmful alcohol use; communication resilience processes among cancer patients and their partners; storied resilience experiences of women political leaders in China; local emergency planning communities (LEPCs) organizing for disaster resilience; identity renegotiation and reconstruction in online spaces on the website Reddit; and disaster lesson remembering and forgetting in two communities. These articles provide a snapshot of the current state of communication and resilience research, with all contributions using theoretical perspectives to guide the investigation of communication and resilience in varied contexts. In each article, practical implications and next steps for research are identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The special planning for shelters is an integral part of overall city planning and is a key issue in solving the urban security problem. During the planning of earthquake emergency shelters, it is usually necessary to prioritize the designated shelters to avoid wasting resources. However, in previous research initiatives, special attention has been given to the general location-allocation model without prior consideration of the designated shelters. This article presents a multi-objective supplemental location-allocation optimization model for earthquake emergency shelters that addresses the concerns related to the designated shelters. This model is believed to remain more consistent with the knowledge of shelter planners and policy makers by incorporating the uncertainties of the temporal dynamics of population distribution and the spatially heterogeneous distribution of evacuees under various earthquake damage scenarios by using the elliptical attenuation model for seismic intensity into the location-allocation problem. A case study of the central area of Beijing, China is presented. A modified particle swarm optimization algorithm is applied to solve the supplemental location-allocation model and the general location-allocation model, and the solutions obtained from the two models are then compared. The results show that the solutions of the supplemental location-allocation model significantly minimized the shelter area by prioritizing the designated shelters. By contrast, without prior consideration of the designated shelters, the shelter areas significantly increased, which slightly decreased the evacuation distance in the general location-allocation model. The policy makers could select solutions from the obtained minimal-area scheme using the supplemental location-allocation model that ensures acceptable evacuation distances and minimal budgets by prioritizing the designated shelters during the phased planning of shelters in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typhoons have inflicted significant damage and loss of life to China, a large number of typhoon–rainstorm–debris flow–tunnel accidents occur in the southeastern coastal areas each year. Considering the disaster prevention and mitigation decision-making of disaster accidents in coastal areas and the reduction of regional economic losses, this Express Letter presents some typical accident scenes and rescue measures in recent years and analyses the hazard mechanism from three aspects. On this basis, we propose some suggestions such as the monitoring and early-warning system, which can provide a few references for reducing disaster losses and improving disaster treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic vulnerability assessments play a significant role in comprehensive risk mitigation efforts and seismic emergency planning, especially for urban areas with a high population density and a complex construction environment. Traditional approaches such as in situ fieldwork are accurate for conducting seismic vulnerability assessments of buildings; however, they are too much time and cost-consuming, especially in moderate to low seismic hazard regions. To address this issue, an integrated approach for a macroseismic vulnerability assessment composed of data mining methods and GIScience technology was presented and applied to Urumqi, China. First, vulnerability proxies were established via in situ data of buildings in the Tianshan District with an EMS-98 vulnerability classification scheme and two data mining methods, namely, support vector machine and association rule learning methods. Then, vulnerability proxies were applied to the Urumqi database, and the accuracy was validated. Finally, seismic risk maps were constructed through data consisting of direct damage to buildings and human casualties. The results indicated that the two data mining methods could achieve desirable accuracies and stabilities when estimating the seismic vulnerability. The seismic risk of Urumqi was estimated as Slight with a predicted number of 61,380 homeless people for a seismic intensity scenario of VIII. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earth observation data sharing is an essential part of the data lifecycle and plays a critical role in Earth science research. Existing industry data sharing systems are affected by restrictions in distributed resource management and tightly coupled service interoperability. These systems currently offer no support for facilitating cross-disciplinary exploration and application. The lack of a national data sharing infrastructure has led to reduced international cooperation. These barriers are common and have hindered the development of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The China GEOSS Data Sharing Network (China GEOSS DSNet) has been proposed as a part of China's Plan for Implementing GEOSS (2016–2025) to address the above issues. In this research, we designed a national GEOSS data sharing framework, including resource integration mechanism, sharing-oriented metadata standards, and lightweight interoperability service to coordinate various Earth observation resources. So far, more than 29 million archived satellite metadata records and 200 TB of high-quality satellite datasets have been integrated under this framework. The results were demonstrated in the following applications: domestic satellite archived metadata query service, international Earth observation resource sharing service, and disaster emergency response service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of rapid urbanization and climate change, many large- and medium-sized cities in China frequently undergo urban disasters with severe impacts that result in many casualties, induce significant economic losses, and restrict sustainable social and economic development. Providing timely and accurate early warnings is the most effective measure for disaster prevention and mitigation before such disasters can impose severe impacts. In this study, we propose a dynamic impact assessment method for rainstorm waterlogging using land-use data. First, based on a detailed collection of disaster prevention and mitigation data, we construct an impact assessment index based on the assessment objects of this study. Then, a waterlogging simulation is performed, and the simulation results are found to meet the assessment requirements. Finally, we conduct an impact assessment every half hour during a heavy rainfall event and evaluate the performance of the proposed method by assessing the socioeconomic impact, object impact, industry impact, regional impact, and comprehensive impact of the event. These assessments produce valuable information for providing diverse and timely services in the event of urban waterlogging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institutional structures and processes of emergency management have been infused with ideas of Comprehensive Emergency Management (CEM) and the so-called all-hazard approach in various countries since the mid-1980s. China's new emergency management system has moved to the direction of a more CEM-like system, though some experts advocate an even more comprehensive system. This article examines the applicability of three popular CEM principles in the Chinese context: all-hazard, all-phase and all-stakeholder involvement. We argue that (1) an all-hazard coordinating ministry was established for a different reason; (2) integrating all-phase management (especially mitigation phase) should not only be applied in post-catastrophes reconstructions, but also in prior disaster mitigation phases; (3) too much stake has been imposed on individual leaders in vertical governmental relations which hinders opportunities on trial and error learning after an emergency. Finally, we try to contribute to the extensions of the CEM concept after comparing applications in different political and administrative contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: China has made remarkable achievements in the field of immunization. However, several widespread vaccine safety-related events have recently received worldwide attention and reflect flaws in vaccine management. This study aimed to summarize vaccine safety-related events between 1985 and 2018 in China and analyze the profit motives of these events. Methods. Literature and media reviews were conducted to discover vaccine safety-related events. We developed a conceptual model with profit-related variables, and using information available from each event, we identified which profit-related variable was implicated, and how it related to the pursuit of higher profits. Results: A total of 39 vaccine safety-related events were found in vaccine production, procurement, transportation, and daily management, along with adverse events following immunization (AEFIs). Overall, 90% (35/39) of the events could be classified as profit-driven. The motives of most events could be tied to one or more reasons, including decreasing costs among vaccine producers (67%, 26/39), reducing actual procurement price (67%, 26/39), and reducing costs of transportation and/or cold chain (24/39, 62%). Conclusions: In order to deal with vaccine-related challenges, a more restrictive supervision system on vaccine production and more emergency preparedness, including health and risk communication strategies, for vaccine safety should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this issue, we present 20 court cases of private citizens suing the government in China from 2013 to 2019, selected from 662 published administrative law cases since 2003. But it should be mentioned that the court also ruled in four cases that the government-defendant erred in carrying out their duties, and granted some, but not all the plaintiffs' requests (I-3, I-6, II-5, II-10). A Case Summary To illustrate the litigation process, related statutes, legal strategies of the plaintiffs and defendants, as well as the adjudicative reasoning by the courts and the judicial outcomes, we summarize the first of the 20 cases below. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the nexus of coal-government-society relations in present-day China using a governmentality approach to explore the interactions between policy change, “crisis” management and social action. It outlines the noticeable shift in government rationalities and communication regarding the coal industry in recent years. It then frames this shift within the broader context of government-society relations focusing on public debate regarding the calamitous nature of China’s air pollution and its filtering via the censorship apparatus of the Communist Party-state. Finally, it shows how problems relating to coal extraction and combustion have been taken up at the level of grass-roots protest and philanthropic advocacy. An examination of such activism illustrates the crucial role played by digital media networks in sparking debate on coal-related environmental and health crises, and in pushing an authoritarian government to change national coal and other policies in order to maintain social and political stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is important for China. Any sudden water pollution accident along the route would threaten normal water supply. We studied four technologies (hydrodynamic and water quality simulation, source identification, emergency regulation, and evaluation of emergency measures) and developed and implemented a decision support system that provides technical support in managing pollution accidents. The achievements, which include four technologies and a system, have practical significance for emergency management in the Middle Route as they can help deal with accidents and policy formulation, and can be applied to other water transfer projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On April 14, 2010, a massive earthquake measuring 7.1Ms struck the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Its scale notwithstanding, it has received much less national and international attention than the also immense Wenchun quake of 2008 in Sichun Province. This field report discusses the contribution of religion and spirituality in postdisaster relief in Yushu. It also calls for critical reflection on the issue of homogenization in the discussion of indigenous social work in China, and perhaps in other multiethnic countries in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides (generally including debris flows) seriously threaten life and property. Studies on landslide risk are of great significance for regional disaster prevention and mitigation. In this study, the grid of 1 km ×1 km was selected as the assessment unit to exhibit the spatial distribution of landslide risk in China. With the support of Geographic Information System (GIS) technique, the combined model of certainty factor model (CF) and logistic regression model (LR) was applied to assess the landslide hazard, Liu's method was used to evaluate the landslide vulnerability, and the product of hazard multiplied by vulnerability was used to represent the landslide risk. The spatial patterns of the hazard, vulnerability and risk of landslides were displayed on the national scale of China. The results indicated that the high hazard zones are commonly distributed in the south of Yangtze River, especially the very high hazard zones are concentrated in the southwest of China. The high vulnerability zones are mainly distributed in the eastern coastal cities with developed economy and dense population. The distributional pattern of landslide risk is approximately divided by Heihe-Tengchong population density line. The west of the line is mainly distributed low risk areas; whereas the east of the line contains moderate and high risk areas. The classes of very low, low, moderate, high and very high risk areas account for 40.51%, 18.34%, 33.86%, 7.28% and 0.01% of the total area respectively. The macro-scale regional assessment is needed in China, which may benefit the top design of landslide risk reduction and territorial functional zoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing shelters is an important part of earthquake disaster management which involves selecting the location of them and assigning the evacuees to them. For this work, selecting suitable objectives and solution is important. Thus, in this paper, a multi-objective mathematical model with four groups of the objectives, allied with a modified particle swarm optimization algorithm, has been developed to solve the location-allocation problem for earthquake shelter. The four objective groups are: total shelter number (TSN) and total evacuation distance (TED), TSN and total weighted evaluation time (TWET), total shelter area (TSA) and TED, and TSA and TWET. The solutions of the model include the determination of the shelters from the candidates and how to allocate population to them. Then the solutions of the model with four objective groups are given and compared using safety, capacity and investment evaluation index with the case of Chaoyang district of Beijing, China. Related to government's preferences and future city planning, the most suitable model solutions can be chosen to help decide where it is suitable to construct shelters and how to allocate the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducted terrain analysis and remote sensing image interpretation to determine the distributions of historical and potential landslides in Shang-an Village and elucidate the characteristics of landslide development within the area. Using the discrete element method, we constructed a digital model of the study area in order to explore the landslide movement processes and determine the scope of influence with regard to deposition. The scope of influence was then used to perform hazard zoning in the creation of a landslide hazard map for use as a reference in future land planning and disaster prevention. Our results revealed 13 potential landslide masses in the study area, 92% of which are on unstable slopes with limited landslide activity. These areas should be the focus of future monitoring and remediation projects. Direct impact from falling rock is the main concern in the area roughly 50 m around the sliding masses in the source areas of the study region and approximately 30 m around the creek beds upstream. In contrast, being buried by debris flow is the concern in the lowland areas roughly 30 m from creek channels in the middle and lower reaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water resources emergency management can mitigate regional damage from water emergencies. Taking Tongzhou District, Nantong City as the study area, this paper proposes technical and engineering measures to improve the water emergency management system. This paper chooses groundwater as the alternative emergency water source, and proposes an emergency wells layout scheme according to the disparities between current groundwater supply capacities and the emergency water demands in each planning unit in 2020. Jiuweigang River and Tonglv River are proposed as water-dilution channels to improve the surface water environment and provide suitable water to Tongzhou District by means of sluice gates. Lastly, this paper describes the water resources emergency management mechanism, including the organization system, the response mechanism, and the supporting measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to begin to generate an exploratory model of the disaster-related mental health education process associated with the training experiences of psychological relief workers active during the Sichuan earthquake in China. The data consisted of semi-structured interviews with 20 psychological relief workers from four different professions (social workers, psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, and counsellors) regarding their experiences in training and ideas for improvement. The model explains the need to use a people-centred community interprofessional education approach, which focuses on role-modelling of the trainer, caring for relief workers, paying attention to the needs of the trainee, and building systematic interprofessional education strategies. The proposed model identifies areas for the comprehensive training of relief workers and aims to address the importance of people-centred mental health service provisions, ensure intentional and strategic training of relief workers using interprofessional concepts and strategies, and use culturally attuned and community-informed strategies in mental health training practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the rapid developing trend of long, large and deep construction characteristics for underground engineering in the world, China has the largest number of karst tunnels with the wide scales and great difficulties. As the hydrogeological conditions are becoming unprecedentedly complex, water inrush disaster becomes the bottleneck problem for the further development of traffic tunnels. Based on the statistical analysis of a large number of cases of water inrush in karst tunnels, influence factors of water inrush have been put forward from the view of karst hydrogeological factors and engineering disturbance of human factors. Karst hydrogeological factors include geological defect, strata dip, formation lithology, landform and underground level. Human factors of engineering disturbance include excavation and reinforcement geological prediction, monitoring and measurement of surrounding rock. It also introduces some geological disasters caused by the water inrush in tunnel excavation. In terms of the formation of water inrush channel, water inrush types are divided into geological defects inrush, non-geological defects inrush and the combination. Conclusions will be beneficial to further research on hazards control of underground construction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The torrential flooding and debris flow disasters associated with global climate change pose not only serious threat to individual lives and property, but also impact economic development. Accurately simulating flood scenarios can help to reduce the losses caused by torrential flooding and debris flow by making early warning, evacuation planning, and risk analysis possible. In this study, HEC-RAS software and HEC-GeoRAS module were employed in GIS (geographic information system) to simulate the flood overtopping in the Mengzong Gully of Batang River in flood scenarios occurring once in 20, 50, and 100 years, respectively. The simulated floods provided valuable information including scope and depth of submersion via 2D visualization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The primary goal of this paper is to discuss an integrated approach to efficiently obtaining earthquake damage information. We developed a framework to rapidly obtain earthquake damage information using post-earthquake airborne optical images. The framework is a standard process that includes data selection, preprocessing, damage factor identification, damage factor evaluation and the development of an earthquake damage information map. We can obtain damage information on severely affected regions using this framework, which will aid in planning rescue and rehabilitation efforts following disasters. We used the integrated approach to obtain damage information using the Lushan earthquake (magnitude 7.0, 20 April 2013) as a case study. The result were as follows: (1) 644 collapsed buildings and 4599 damaged buildings accounted for 13.90% and 96.24%, respectively, of the total number of buildings in the study area; (2) 334 landslides (total area of 691,674.5 m2) were detected and were found at greater probabilities at elevations of 1400–1500 m and higher slope; (3) no secondary disasters, such as barrier lakes, were detected; (4) 15 damaged sections (total of 306 m) were detected in the lifelines, and road sections that are at a high risk of damage (total of 2.4 km) were identified; and (5) key structures, including Yuxi River Dam and three bridges, were intact. Integrating the earthquake damage factor information generated a comprehensive Lushan earthquake damage information map. The integrated approach was proven to be effective using the Lushan earthquake as a case study and can be applied to assess earthquake damage to facilitate efficient rescue efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Post-seismic relief supply allocation based on psychological risk perception is an important yet understudied area in emergency management. This article develops a systematic approach to assist in post-seismic relief supply allocation in the Longmen Shan fault (LSF) area where many destructive earthquakes have occurred. First, to analyze the relief supply allocation system, a system dynamics (SD) model is built for the LSF area, which we then verify in a simulation of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. This simulation of an actual earthquake in the area allows for the verification of direct relief supply allocation information. Then, by applying the SD model to the 2013 Lushan earthquake, a decision tree focusing on the selection of appropriate decision-makers is proposed. In summary, the combination of the SD model and the decision tree can then be used to assist the government in carrying out post-seismic relief supply allocation when coping with the actual relief environment. Further, this systematic approach will be improved using other detailed factors from subsequent research on post-seismic relief supply allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]