Earthquakes without frontiers: a partnership for increasing resilience to seismic hazard in the continents

自1900年以来，有200万至250万人死于地震，其中约三分之二发生在远离板块边界的大陆内部。在这段时间里，对地震的科学认识的进步已经转化为对灾害有充分了解的地区（如加州、智利和日本）令人印象深刻的恢复能力。在这里，复原力被定义为一个社区抵抗、适应或适应地震影响的能力，维持关键基本功能的能力，以及灾后恢复的能力。然而，在大陆内部的大部分地区，却没有取得类似的进展。相反，由于广泛的社会、经济和治理问题，大陆内部的许多地区，特别是阿尔卑斯-喜马拉雅带，在过去几十年中对地震的脆弱性大大增加。因此，提高对大陆地震及其相关灾害的复原力是一项紧迫的科学和社会优先事项。这一目标需要对地震有一个全面的认识，需要物理科学家、社会科学家、从业者和政府之间进行合作，这种合作的规模还没有尝试过。我们的项目将三个在以下方面具有广泛和成功记录的小组结合在一起：（i）地震和相关灾害科学[COMET+，国家地球观测中心的动态地球和地质灾害研究小组，以及英国地质调查局灾害小组]（ii）探索对新出现的灾害和风险的复原力的社会科学[达勒姆大学灾害、风险和复原力研究所，第一，我们将在来自六所英国大学、两个英国研究中心的研究人员以及来自阿尔卑斯-喜马拉雅山脉一带国家的广泛的政府和非政府组织的代表之间建立全球伙伴关系。这一伙伴关系将侧重于交流和分享研究需求和知识差距、基础研究成果和产出，以及在整个地区建立地震抗灾能力的新方法，这一伙伴关系将在三个案例研究领域（中国、中亚和喜马拉雅前线）开展物理科学和社会科学研究。目前，我们对这一大片地区地震发生的了解太少，无法提供社区所需的次国家规模的可能地震概率和影响的详细估计，更不用说提供地震发生的预测了。该项目的一个组成部分涉及研究整个地区的活动断层的位置，它们目前变形的速度以及它们可能产生的地面震动。这一基础自然科学研究还将包括滑坡等次生灾害的影响，将以对风险社区有意义和可用的形式提供有关灾害的基线情景。与此同时，我们将绘制并确定有助于或阻碍建立对这些自然灾害的恢复能力的社会因素。这个整体的复原方法将包括调查文化习俗和适应性、经济因素、社会机制，以及各级政府在确定社区对地震的复原力方面所起的作用。这个项目的总体框架由ODI的RAPID方法提供，将使我们能够利用合作伙伴组织的专业知识和上述研究结果，制定一套循证工具包和政策建议，共同确定在案例研究领域和整个伙伴关系中提高地震复原力的最佳途径。

Between 2 and 2.5 million people have died in earthquakes since 1900, and approximately two-thirds of those deaths have occurred in the continental interiors, far from the plate boundaries. Over this time interval, advances in the scientific understanding of earthquakes have been translated into impressive resilience in regions where the hazard is well understood (eg California, Chile, and Japan). Here, resilience is defined as the ability of a community to resist, accommodate, or adapt to the effects of an earthquake, to maintain critical basic functions, and to recover after the event. Comparable advances have not, however, taken place in most parts of the continental interiors. Instead, many parts of the continental interiors, and particularly the Alpine-Himalayan belt, have seen a major increase in vulnerability to earthquakes in the last few decades, due to a wide range of social, economic, and governance issues. Increasing resilience to continental earthquakes and their related hazards is therfore an urgent scientific and societal priority. This goal requires a holistic view of earthquakes, and collaboration between physical scientists, social scientists, practitioners, and governments on a scale that has not yet been attempted. Our project knits together three groups with extensive and successful track records in (i) the science of earthquakes and related hazards [COMET+, the Dynamic Earth and Geohazards research group in the National Centre of Earth Observation, and the British Geological Survey Hazards Group] (ii) exploring the social science of resilience to emerging hazards and risks [Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, University of Durham, and associated researchers] and (iii) the use of research to promote evidence-based policy [Overseas Development Institute].First, we shall establish a global partnership between researchers from six UK universities, two UK research centers, and representatives of a wide range of governmental and non-governmental organisations from countries across the Alpine-Himalayan belt. This partnership will be focused on communication and sharing of research needs and knowledge gaps, basic research findings and outputs, and new approaches for building resilience to earthquakes across the region.This partnership will carry out coupled physical- and social-science research in three case-study areas (China, central Asia, and the Himalayan front). Our understanding of earthquake occurrence across this large region is currently too poor to provide detailed estimates of likely earthquake probabilities and effects at the sub-national scales needed by communities - let alone to provide forecasts of earthquake occurrence. One component of the project involves research into the locations of active faults across the region, the rates at which they are currently deforming, and the ground shaking that they are likely to produce. This basic physical science research, which will also include the effects of secondary hazards such as landsliding, will provide baseline scenarios about the hazards in forms that are meaningful for, and usable by, the communities at risk.At the same time, we shall map and identify the societal factors that help or hinder the creation of resilience to those physical hazards. This holistic approach to resilience will include investigation of cultural practices and adaptations, economic considerations, social mechanisms, and the role that governance at all scales plays in determining how resilience communities are to earthquakes.The overall framework of this project, provided by the ODI's RAPID methodology, will allow us to draw upon the expertise of the partner organisations, and the research findings outlined above, to generate a set of evidence-based toolkits and policy recommendations that together will define the pathways by which resilience to earthquakes can best be increased, both in the case-study areas and across the entire partnership.