Integrated Disaster Prevention and Reduction for Areas along the Belt and Road during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period: Global Disaster Reduction and Key Issues for Major Areas

Feng Kong

School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Research Center for Emergency Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Center for Social Risk Assessment in China, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract Disaster prevention and mitigation, as the greatest common divisor of people’s interests in the construction of the Belt and Road, can not only guarantee the safety of Chinese enterprises going abroad and China’s foreign investment but also promote the sustainable development in countries and regions along the route, which is conducive to the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. On the eve of China’s disaster prevention and reduction plan during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, this paper studies the key issues in integrated disaster prevention and reduction for major areas along the Belt and Road. First of all, it analyzes the importance and urgency of integrated disaster prevention and mitigation for areas along the Belt and Road. Secondly, from a global perspective, it analyzes the measures for the construction and innovation of disaster prevention and reduction technical system, the key issues in the disaster risk management and the focuses of disaster prevention and reduction international cooperation mechanism along the Belt and Road. At last, from the strategic level, it analyzes systematically the major areas and key fields for research and practice of integrated disaster prevention and reduction along the Belt and Road, including research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction of Silk Road Economic Belt, research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction of Maritime Silk Road, research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction in the construction of major protects, research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction in the construction of the six economic corridors, research and practice on the construction of disaster prevention and reduction information platform and research and practice on the building of cross-border and cross-regional rescue capability.

Key words The Belt and Road, Disaster prevention and reduction, Disaster risk, International cooperation, Sustainable development

1 Introduction

The Belt and Road is one of the areas with the most natural disasters[1], greatest disaster risk and most serious disasters. High risk of natural disasters in the context of climate change seriously threatens the safety of the lives and property of the public along the Belt and Road, and severely restricts the local social and economic development and the response and participation ability of the Belt and Road construction[2-3]. Therefore, since the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, from the perspective of integrated disaster prevention and reduction, the key issues in the integrated disaster prevention and reduction of the major areas along the Belt and Road were analyzed. This is of great significance.

In terms of disaster-inducing environment, the geographical environment along the Belt and Road is complex and varies greatly, across the high-cold, high-steep and high-earthquake intensity zones and the Pacific and Indian Ocean monsoon regions. The stability of the disaster-inducing environment is poor[4-7]. From the perspective of disaster-inducing factors, the countries and regions along the Belt and Road are in the two natural disaster zones in the World Pacific Rim and the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with frequent occurrence of various types of natural disasters such as earthquake. From the point of view of the types of disaster-inducing factors, almost all disaster-inducing factors are distributed in the areas along the Belt and Road. From the perspective of disaster complexity, the complexity of disasters in the areas along the Belt and Road is prominent. The sudden, serial and concurrent occurrence of natural disasters has increased, characterized by various disasters, disaster chain, disaster encounter and frequent occurrence of cross-border catastrophes[8]. In terms of disaster bearer and disaster prevention capability, the towns and settlements along the Belt and Road are densely distributed, most countries and regions along the Belt and Road have undeveloped economy and weak resistance against disasters, especially against catastrophes, and even worse, they cannot cope with disasters separately[9-13]. From the perspective of risk level of disasters, due to high population density and low economic development level, the occurrence of natural disasters in the areas along the Belt and Road is more serious, and they have a greater impact on society than other countries and regions[14-17]. The risk level of disasters in the countries and regions along the Belt and Road is significantly higher than the global average, and the risk level of disasters in China and the neighboring countries and regions is among the highest in the Belt and Road region. In the long run, the construction of the Belt and Road involves a large number of infrastructure, transportation, communication and energy projects. It is estimated that the investment demand in the infrastructure construction field alone will be as high as 8 trillion USD. In the next 10 years, China’s total investment in the Belt and Road is expected to be as high as 1.6 trillion USD. In the future, the population and economy of the countries along the Belt and Road will show an overall growth trend, and the proportion of the economy to the world’s economic aggregate will continue to increase[18-20]. In summary, high risk of natural disasters in the context of climate change is a serious threat to the safety of the Belt and Road construction and the safety of overseas investment in China.

Since 2014, the Belt and Road Initiative has been mentioned in the annual government work report of China. The number of mentions has increased, and the field has expanded, from "quick planning" in 2014, to "promoting cooperation" in 2015, to "advancing solidly" in 2016 and 2017, to "promoting international cooperation" in 2018, and to "integrating domestic and foreign participation in joint construction" in 2019. The Belt and Road Initiative aims to promote globalization and inclusive development. It has been supported by the initiative of the United Nations, and has become a Chinese program and Chinese wisdom in the context of global governance. It reflects the role of China as a big country, is a paradigm for building a community of human destiny, and has received support and participation of more and more countries[21-24].

TheNationalIntegratedDisasterPreventionandReductionPlan(2016-2020),i.e., theNational13thFive-YearPlanonIntegratedDisasterPreventionandReductionhas mentioned the Belt and Road Initiative, including two main tasks for disaster prevention and reduction and one major project. In August, 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated at the Symposium on Belt and Road Construction Work that prevention of natural disaster risks is an important part of building security guarantee for the Belt and Road, and it is necessary to practically advance the security guarantee for the Belt and Road. In January, 2019, at the seminar for provincial and ministerial leading cadres in insisting on the bottom-line thinking to prevent and resolve major risks, General Secretary Xi Jinping once again stressed the need to improve the security system for the Belt and Road and resolutely safeguard sovereignty, security and development interests, in order to create a good external environment for China’s reform, development and stability. On the occasion of the formulation and promulgation of the forthcoming outline of the 14thFive-YearPlanforNationalEconomicandSocialDevelopment, it can be expected that the construction of the Belt and Road will become one of the important engines for China’s economic development. The formulation of theNational14thFive-YearPlanonIntegratedDisasterPreventionandReductionandthePlanonIntegratedDisasterPreventionandReductionintheBeltandRoadhas become a major need for national development, and is also a scientific practice to resolve major risks. In this context, it is of great practical and scientific significance to comprehensively sort out and analyze the key issues in Disaster Prevention and Reduction of the major areas along the Belt and Road from a strategic perspective.

2 Focuses of integrated disaster prevention and reduction for areas along the Belt and Road from the global perspective: key technologies, risk management and international cooperation

2.1 Construction and innovation of the technical system for integrated disaster prevention and reduction in areas along the Belt and RoadThe construction and innovation of the technical system for disaster prevention and reduction is the core of the scientific and technological disaster reduction in the areas along the Belt and Road, and is also a good opportunity to lead the technology innovation in the global and regional integrated disaster prevention and reduction[25-29]. From the perspective of current development needs of scientific and technological disaster reduction, the construction of the disaster prevention and reduction technical system mainly includes the following three aspects. One is sky-space-ground-sea integrated and accurate monitoring technology for earthquake, meteorological and hydrological disasters, mountain disasters and marine disasters based on high-resolution remote sensing, high-precision navigation, unmanned aerial vehicle, big data, Internet of Things, and next-generation electronic technologies. The second is the pre-alarm model and technical model of different disasters based on the disaster formation mechanism along the Belt and Road. The third is the key technologies and models for cross-border natural disaster reduction in the optimal allocation of geotechnical engineering and ecological engineering. The innovation and breakthrough of the above-mentioned three aspects of disaster prevention and mitigation technologies are closely related to the smooth implementation of the Belt and Road safety construction. They affect the cooperation and operation methods of related projects in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of disaster risk prevention and control. At the same time, China’s domestic disaster prevention and reduction systems and standards have gone abroad and serve the locals. This is also an extension and expansion of China’s disaster prevention and reduction systems in the countries and regions along the Belt and Road.

2.2 Key issues in disaster risk management for areas along the Belt and RoadDisaster risk management is the key to the security construction of the Belt and Road, and is also a scientific practice to effectively mitigate disaster risks[30-34]. From the perspective of business research and practice of integrated risk management, the issues in the risk management of disasters along the Belt and Road mainly include the following three aspects. (i) Methods and models for identifying and predicting potential disasters (risk sources) of different types. (ii) Disaster risk analysis, modeling, assessment and mapping methods at different scales based on disaster evolution process and dynamics mechanism. (iii) Multi-agent actively participatory risk control and management technology research and development and comprehensive risk prevention model and mechanism research. At present, it is urgent to carry out dangerousness assessment and risk assessment for different types of disasters (e.g. marine disasters, mountain disasters, floods, droughts and earthquakes) in the South China Sea, North Indian Ocean, China-Pakistan, China-Nepal and Central Asia in the Belt and Road region at different scales (e.g. region, basin and administrative unit). Based on the evolution characteristics of disaster dynamics, it is needed to carry out scenario simulation of the evolution process of disaster dynamics under special natural environmental conditions, predict the key parameters (e.g. dynamics, mode, impact range and level) of major potential hazards, establish vulnerability assessment methods based on the spatial distribution data of disaster bearers, construct a multi-scale, multi-disaster and multi-process integrated disaster risk assessment indicator system for the Belt and Road region, propose a multi-disaster and multi-disaster chain risk quantitative assessment model, complete the comprehensive mapping of disaster risks at different time and space scales, reveal the spatial-temporal evolution pattern and the driving factors of regional differences in the comprehensive risk of multiple disasters in the Belt and Road region at different scales and propose a quantitative assessment method for disaster risk to complete the comprehensive mapping of disaster risks at different scales.

2.3 International cooperation mechanism for integrated disaster prevention and reduction in areas along the Belt and RoadThe international cooperation and exchange of the Belt and Road for disaster prevention and reduction is an important way to achieve structural disaster reduction and functional disaster reduction[35-36]. In the context of construction of the Belt and Road, building and promoting the cross-border major natural disaster risk prevention and control path and the multi-country disaster risk early warning and prevention linkage mechanism includes specifically the three following aspects: scientific research cooperation mechanism for disaster prevention and reduction along the Belt and Road, acquisition, analysis, integration and sharing mechanism of natural disaster data in the countries along the Belt and Road, and coordination mechanism for prevention, mitigation and relief of cross-border natural disasters along the Belt and Road region. The key is to identify major natural disasters and major engineering risks across the border, develop cross-border major engineering vulnerability and comprehensive risk assessment techniques, propose the cross-border major natural disaster risk prevention and control measures under the Belt and Road framework, establish a disaster risk early warning and prevention multi-country linkage mechanism suitable for the conditions of the countries along the Belt and Road, develop and promote low-cost and high-efficiency disaster prevention and control technologies, build a monitoring and early warning technology and a mass monitoring and prevention system that are generally accepted by the people along the Belt and Road and have high social participation, formulate and implement a plan for disaster reduction talent cultivation and a roadmap for the development of scientific and technological disaster reduction in underdeveloped countries and regions, and construct a macro-paradigm of comprehensive risk prevention for major natural disasters along the Belt and Road region and a risk prevention model for typical regions, on the basis of existing cross-border major natural disaster prevention and reduction strategies and risk prevention mechanisms, in order to achieve structural disaster reduction and functional disaster reduction.

3 Research and practice of integrated disaster prevention and reduction in areas along the Belt and Road under the perspective of key issues for major areas

3.1 Research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction of Silk Road Economic BeltIn the study of disaster prevention and reduction in the Silk Road Economic Belt, it is necessary to pay close attention to the formation mechanism and mitigation technology of flood and drought disasters in the arid regions of Central Asia. Aiming at the major demand for the safety construction of the Europe-Asia land route in the Silk Road Economic Belt, the key is to focus on and break through key technologies such as high-resolution disaster monitoring, disaster assessment, risk analysis and disaster impact comprehensive research, develop high-performance disaster monitoring and emergency service technology systems, establish an integrated disaster monitoring and demonstration network and conduct demonstration and research on the disaster (e.g. snow and ice disasters, drought disasters, soil degradation and frozen soil) prevention and reduction applications coordinately and orderly along the Silk Road Economic Belt in conjunction with the disaster prevention and mitigation departs of Central Asian countries, thereby providing technical guarantees for revealing the formation and evolution of natural disasters along the Silk Road Economic Belt and ensuring the safety of the key channels of the Silk Road Economic Belt.

3.2 Research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction of Maritime Silk RoadOn the study of disaster prevention and reduction on the Maritime Silk Road, there is an urgent need to carry out research on the formulation, evolution and mechanisms of typical disasters such as typhoons, extreme rainfall, storm surges, red tides, tsunamis, sea surface pollution and maritime freezing disasters on the Maritime Silk Road, develop key technologies for predicting and forecasting, monitoring, early warning and mitigation of sudden marine disasters based on multi-technology means, develop multi-channel publishing technology for emergency information, propose marine disaster emergency mitigation plans and models, improve emergency response measures and operational mechanisms and improve the emergency response capability of sudden marine disasters. In particular, for the eastern section of the Maritime Silk Road (i.e., the Pan-South China Sea region, including Manila Trench, the South China Sea and the western India Ocean), it is needed to improve the tsunami seismic monitoring system, improve the research and development capabilities for early-warning technology, plan and build a number of tsunami seismic monitoring and warning stations, realize data sharing among the tsunami seismic monitoring and warning stations along the route, establish data autonomic processing and real-time transmission capabilities, realize quick location of large earthquakes in the relevant sea areas and quick determination of their focal mechanisms, construct technical training centers for regional tsunami warning stations, improve the reliability and stability of system operation, establish a joint research and development center for tsunami warning, study the formulation, spread and impact mechanisms of tsunamis in the eastern section of the Maritime Silk Road, establish a numerical early-warning model for tsunami disasters along the route and develop a tsunami warning technology system based on big data to enhance the tsunami warning capabilities of the countries along the route.

3.3 Research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction in the construction of major projectsIn the study of disaster prevention and reduction for major projects, on the one hand, it is generally urgent to study the construction of major projects such as hydropowers, railways, ports and auxiliary facilities and their mutual disturbance mechanisms to the surrounding environment, study the prevention and control technologies of major projects against natural disasters, and carry out integration and demonstration of disaster prevention and control technologies relying on typical disaster points in major engineering disturbance areas. On the other hand, it is needed to comprehensively launch the preparation of list of destructive earthquakes along the Belt and Road and seismic map of key areas, collect building materials for countries and regions along the Belt and Road through international cooperation in disaster prevention and reduction, establish an earthquake vulnerability model, conduct risk assessment of earthquake disasters in key cities, collect and collate data on major projects and key infrastructures in countries and regions along the Belt and Road, establish a local seismic structure model aiming at key projects and combining local seismic environment and data conditions, conduct risk analysis and emergency design for earthquake disasters according to the engineering fortification needs and develop an earthquake warning system for specific engineering services.

3.4 Research and practice on disaster prevention and reduction in the construction of the six economic corridorsIn the study of disaster prevention and reduction in the construction of the six major economic corridors, it is important to focus on the potential impact of disaster risks in China and its surrounding countries and regions on the Belt and Road land economic corridor. Especially in the context of climate warming, it is necessary to pay close attention to mudslides, landslides, slippery slopes, glacial lake burst, mountain torrents, dammed lakes,etc. caused by climate change, and the complex disaster risks arising from serial or concurrent occurrence of the disasters, that is, multiple disasters, disaster chains and disaster encounters, analyze the distribution law, formulation mechanism, evolution process and causing mechanism of disasters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and surrounding mountainous areas, develop key technologies for disaster prediction, monitoring, early warning and prevention in mountainous areas according to their regional characteristics in the context of climate change and carry out integration and demonstration of disaster prevention and reduction technologies in the key risk zones of typical economic corridors.

3.5 Research and practice on the construction of disaster prevention and reduction information platformIn the construction of disaster prevention and reduction information platform, it is necessary to unite scientific research institutions and scientific and technical personnel in relevant countries and regions along the Belt and Road, collect and organize the base data and disaster-inducing data of different disaster types in the key areas of the Belt and Road region, carry out research on basic data extraction and mining techniques for natural disasters using high-resolution remote sensing and site observation techniques, propose technical regulations for disaster investigation and data analysis at different scales, build a geographic framework-unified, multi-scale, multi-temporal, multi-process and multi-factor disaster basic database in key countries and regions along the Belt and Road, develop and build a disaster information management platform and explore the establishment of data sharing and disaster investigation mechanisms based on the signed bilateral science and technology cooperation mechanisms.

3.6 Research and practice on the building of cross-border and cross-regional rescue capabilityFor the building of cross-border rescue capability, firstly, it is necessary to study the working mechanism of the international joint rescue operation, determine the principles, steps and operational norms for multi-national joint rescue operations in the region and prepare regional technical standards for international rescue of earthquake disasters. Secondly, it is necessary to study the international earthquake emergency rescue data sharing cloud service technology for resource coordination, develop key technologies for information integrated management and intelligent analysis systems for mobile objects in international earthquake emergency rescue, realize information sharing and online coordination of regional international rescue cooperation and provide a technical platform for the sharing of experience among rescue experts, teams and managers in the region. Finally, it is urgent to study the diversified and multi-subject earthquake ruins emergency rescue training modes, technical methods and joint rescue drill modes, develop professional earthquake rescue training courses for managers and professional search and rescue personnel based on internet, could computing, multiple media, computer simulation and training and practical operation, develop regional international joint rescue tabletop drills and comprehensive drill modes and programs based on the earthquake scene construction and international joint rescue operations and organize demonstration exercise for the joint action of earthquake rescue in the region to form an effective joint rescue capability under the strategic framework of the Belt and Road.

4 Conclusions

In the construction of the Belt and Road, disaster prevention and reduction is the greatest common divisor of the people’s interests. It can provide timely help. The construction of transportation and energy infrastructure is inseparable from a stable natural environment. The appeal of disaster prevention and reduction to the countries and regions along the Belt and Road not only helps to promote the construction of various infrastructures but also helps to promote policy communication, trade flow and financial access. In turn, favorable policy communication, road connectivity, smooth trade, currency circulation and people’s unity will help to support the integrated disaster prevention and reduction and sustainable development along the route. From a development perspective, disaster prevention and reduction, as an important catcher of the Belt and Road safety construction, not only can reflect comprehensive strength and long-term soft power of China. Moreover, it will promote broadly the integration and development of high-tech fields and expand the service radiation capabilities of businesses and industries, as well as sharing and testing the achievements of China’s reform and opening up and serving China’s globalization strategy. On the eve of the 14th Five-Year Plan, from the perspective of resolving major risks, it is forward-looking and practical to analyze the key issues in the disaster prevention and reduction of the major areas along the Belt and Road.