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

地震是对中国人民生命、生计和经济发展的重大威胁。自1900年以来，全世界有200万至250万人死于地震，其中至少有65万人发生在中国。中国地震是自1900年以来死亡人数最高的十次地震中的三次，估计造成的损失为6780亿美元（2012年美元）。仅2008年汶川大地震就造成了超过人民币8，400亿元的直接经济损失，尽管四川省的农村地区大部分受到影响，省会成都仅受到轻微破坏。中国未来的地震可能会造成灾难性的损失，因此，中国的减灾工作至关重要。当地社区在减灾准备和规划中发挥着关键作用。在大地震刚发生后，社区往往与外界资源和援助隔绝，必须依靠自己的计划和能力。在中国西北部等偏远或山区的社区尤其如此。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灾工作的重要性。最值得注意的是，民政部已开始实施一项重大方案，建立一个由数千个达到地方规模备灾最低要求的“示范社区”组成的网络。拟议的研究专门旨在支持和加强莫卡计划。我们的工作将确保它利用广泛的科学知识的危险，包括次生地震灾害，如滑坡。我们的工作还将探讨社区参与CBDRR意愿的因素，以便莫卡项目能够最好地反映面临该灾害的社区的广泛多样性。我们将首先研究中国实现CBDRR的方式，以及这些方式与其他地震多发国家的方式的比较。与此同时，我们将编制中国西北部（包括甘肃、陕西和宁夏三省）滑坡的新清单，并将产生关于过去滑坡规模和影响的新知识，作为未来地震中滑坡灾害的指南。最后，我们将与两个特定的社区合作，了解他们的优先事项和他们对所面临的危险的认识，并提出他们如何在未来地震中应对这些危险的想法。我们工作的重点将是与积极参与的公民团体持续接触，以提出在其社区有效的解决方案。整个目标是采取以社区为中心的方法来了解人们为保护自己免受地震影响而做出的选择。该项目将带来（1）对该地区山体滑坡危害的新认识;（2）更好地了解帮助社区参与DRR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恢复战略。通过提高社区一级对该地区未来肯定会发生的破坏性地震的复原力，该项目将为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地方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。我们渴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，为这些交流和更广泛的区域经济发展做出贡献。

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.