Community-based earthquake disaster risk reduction in China: integrating local and scientific knowledge for planning and preparedness

地震是中国生命、生计和经济发展的主要威胁。自1900年以来，全球有200-250万人死于地震，其中至少65万人死于中国。自1900年以来，中国地震造成的死亡人数占地震死亡人数前十名中的三名，造成的损失估计为6780亿美元(按2012年美元计算)。仅2008年汶川地震就造成了超过8400亿元的直接经济损失，尽管地震主要影响四川省的农村地区，对省会成都只造成了轻微的破坏。未来发生在中国的地震可能会造成灾难性的损失，因此中国的减少灾害风险工作至关重要。当地社区在减少灾害风险的准备和规划中发挥着关键作用。在大地震发生后，社区往往无法获得外部资源和援助，必须依靠自己的计划和能力。对于像中国这样的偏远或山区社区来说，情况尤其如此。虽然中国的减灾规划传统上遵循非常集中的方法，但人们越来越认识到以社区为基础的减少灾害风险工作的重要性。最值得注意的是，民政部已开始实施一项重大方案，建立一个由数千个“示范社区”组成的网络，这些社区已达到地方规模备灾的最低要求。拟议研究的具体目的是支持和加强《行动纲领》方案。我们的工作将确保它利用关于灾害的广泛科学知识，包括次生地震灾害，如山体滑坡。我们的工作还将探索使社区或多或少愿意参与CBDRR的因素，以便MoCA项目能够最好地反映暴露在这种危险中的社区的广泛多样性。我们将首先看看中国实现CBDRR的方式，以及这些方法与其他地震多发国家的方式比较。同时，我们将编制一份新的中国西北部(包括甘肃、陕西和宁夏三省)滑坡清单，并将产生有关过去滑坡规模和影响的新知识，以指导未来地震中的滑坡灾害。最后，我们将与两个特定的社区合作，找出他们优先关注的问题，了解他们对面临的危险的认识，并就他们在未来地震中可能如何应对这些危险提出想法。我们工作的重点将是与积极参与的公民团体持续接触，以提出将在其社区发挥作用的解决方案。整个项目的目标将是采用以社区为中心的方法来了解人们为保护自己免受地震的选择。该项目将导致(1)对该地区山体滑坡灾害的新知识；(2)更好地了解有助于社区参与防灾减灾问题的因素；(3)补充和扩展国家综合减灾五年计划的地方地震复原力战略。通过提高社区层面对未来该地区肯定会发生的破坏性地震的抵抗力，该项目将对可持续增长和经济福利做出直接贡献。我们提议的研究和培训将提高当地评估和规划未来地震影响的能力。最后，中国在减少灾害风险方面的南南知识交流方面开展了建设性合作，例如通过CBDM亚洲项目。我们热切希望通过与亚洲其他地震多发国家的合作伙伴分享这项研究的成果，为这些交流和本地区更广泛的经济发展做出贡献。

Earthquakes are a major threat to lives, livelihoods, and economic development in China. Of the 2-2.5 million deaths in earthquakes worldwide since 1900, at least 650,000 have occurred in China. Chinese earthquakes have caused three of the ten highest death tolls in earthquakes since 1900 and have led to estimated losses of $678 billion (in 2012 USD). The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake alone caused direct economic losses of more than RMB840 billion, despite affecting largely rural areas of Sichuan province and causing only minor damage to the provincial capital of Chengdu. A future earthquake in China could cause catastrophic losses, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts in China are therefore of critical importance.Local communities play a critical role in DRR preparation and planning. In the immediate aftermath of a large earthquake, communities are often cut off from outside resources and assistance, and must rely on their own plans and capacities. This is especially true of communities in remote or mountainous areas like northwestern China. While DRR planning in China has traditionally followed a very centralised approach, there is growing recognition of the importance of community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) efforts. Most notably, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has embarked on a major programme to establish a network of thousands of 'demonstration communities' that have met minimum requirements for local-scale disaster preparedness. The proposed research is specifically aimed at supporting and enhancing the MoCA programme. Our work will ensure that it draws on broad scientific knowledge of the hazard, including secondary earthquake hazards such as landslides. Our work will also explore the factors that make communities more or less willing to engage in CBDRR, so that the MoCA programme can best reflect the broad diversity of communities that are exposed to that hazard.We will first look at the ways in which CBDRR is achieved in China, and how these approaches compare to those in other earthquake-prone countries. At the same time, we will produce a new inventory of landslides in northwestern China (an area that includes Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia provinces), and will generate new knowledge on the sizes and effects of past landslides as a guide to landslide hazard in future earthquakes. Finally, we will work with two specific communities to find out their priority concerns and their awareness of the hazards that they face, and to come up with ideas for how they might deal with those hazards in a future earthquake. The emphasis of our work will be on sustained engagement with groups of engaged citizens to come up with solutions that will work in their communities. The goal throughout will be to take a community-centred approach to understanding the choices that people make to protect themselves from earthquakes.The project will lead to (1) new knowledge of landslide hazard in the region; (2) better understanding of the factors that help communities to engage with DRR issues; and (3) strategies for local earthquake resilience that complement and extend the National Five-Year Plans for Comprehensive Disaster Reduction. By increasing resilience at the community level to the damaging earthquakes that will surely occur across this region in future, the project will make a direct contribution to sustainable growth and economic welfare. The research and training that we propose will increase local capacity to assess and plan for the effects of future earthquakes. Finally, China has engaged in constructive cooperation in south-south exchanges of knowledge in DRR, e.g. through the CBDM Asia project. We are keen to contribute to these exchanges and wider economic development of the region by sharing the outcomes of this research with partners in other earthquake-prone countries across Asia.