International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133

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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr

Review Article

Multi-scale seismic hazard and risk in the China mainland

with implication for the preparedness, mitigation, and
management of earthquake disasters: An overview
Zhongliang Wu n, Tengfei Ma, Hui Jiang, Changsheng Jiang
Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, 100081 Beijing, China

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: Earthquake hazard and risk in the China mainland exhibit multi-scale characteristics. Facing the
Received 16 December 2012 complex challenge, several research and application projects have been undertaken since
Received in revised form recent years. Lessons and experiences of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake contributed much to
27 February 2013
the launching and conducting of these projects. Understandings of the scientific problems and
Accepted 6 March 2013
Available online 14 March 2013
technical approaches taken in the mainstream studies in the China mainland have no signi-
ficant difference from those in the international scientific communities, albeit using of some of
Keywords: the terminologies has distinct cultural differences. Several scientific products have been produ-
China mainland ced serving the society. These scientific products have unique academic merits due to the long-
Multi-scale seismic hazard
term persistence feature and the forward forecast nature, which are essential for the evaluation
Earthquake management
of the related technical performance and the falsification of the scientific ideas. Coping with the
Earthquake science
multi-scale challenge needs the hierarchical actors' network making science and technology
transform to the actions of the public for the preparedness, mitigation, and management of
earthquake disasters, which is still in need of careful design and construction.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2. Earthquakes and disasters in the China mainland: the first-order picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3. Multi-scale seismic hazard and risk and its consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1. Multi-scale seismic hazard in the China mainland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2. Consequences of the multi-scale characteristic of seismic hazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4. Coping with the challenges: the national-level endeavor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5. Scientific products serving the society: tested by and improved after the Wenchuan earthquake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.1. Earthquake hazard assessment, seismic zonation, and seismic design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.2. Forecast of time-dependent earthquake hazard: decade and annual scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.3. Earthquake forecast/prediction: in Chinese versus in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.4. Seismological information service: meeting the needs of our web times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6. The hierarchical actors network: problems and progresses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7. Concluding remarks and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 10 68467980; fax: 86 10 68415372.
E-mail address: wuzl@cea-igp.ac.cn (Z. Wu).

2212-4209/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2013.03.002
22 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
1. Introduction
Regarding the studies and applications in China for the
reduction of earthquake disasters, there have been several
misunderstandings, probably due to the language and
cultural barriers. One such misunderstanding is related
to the Zhang Heng seismoscope (A.D.132), the earliest
known device trying to record earthquakes,1 albeit only a
primitive version of modern seismometers. In the per-
spective of observational seismology this is undoubtedly
correct, but in the perspective of the reduction of earth-
quake disasters what is overlooked is that Zhang Heng's
device started the transmission of earthquake information
by seismic waves, which is much faster (by orders of
magnitudes) than the most efficient carriers of informa-
tion at that timethe (military/royal) postal horses, and,
near the borders, the beacons (fire) along the Great Wall.
As a comparison, in our modern times, real-time digital
seismograph networks still record seismic waves, but the
modern carriers of information, such as the internet,2 have
been at least as efficient as a seismic network in transmit-
ting the information of felt earthquakes (although with
different content of information).
In the understanding of the reduction of earthquake
disasters in the China mainland, the first two questions
might be what the most important feature of this region is,
and how to evaluate the related progresses and challenges,
both being important for the future. In this review we try
to figure out the possible ways to understand these two
questions. We deal with these two complicated questions
mainly based on an empirical observation, trying to clarify
some misunderstandings about the earthquake science
and technology in China. We are not sure to what extent
this aim could be reached, hoping that this review itself is
not another misleading one.
2. Earthquakes and disasters in the China mainland: the
rst-order picture
Earthquakes in the China mainland, located at the inter-
section of the Pacific seismic belt and the Eurasian seismic
belt, are sometimes called, in an overall sense, continental
earthquakes (see e.g., [17]). One of the concepts in need of
clarification is that the continental earthquakes in China are
actually a mixture of intra-plate and inter-plate earthquakes.
This mixed use of the wording continental earthquakes
sometimes masks the real and critical difference between
the plate boundary regions and the mid-continental regions
(for such a difference, see e.g., [13]).
In a global/regional geodynamic perspective, the inter-
action among five plus two tectonic plates, Eurasian, Indian,
North American, Pacific, and Philippine, plus Australian and
Arabian, forms the seismo-tectonic environment of China.
Meanwhile, some of the mid-continental regions, such as
North China, also had major to great earthquakes, causing
destructive consequences to society.
1
See for example, http://english.cri.cn/1702/2005-4-29/121@
232779.htm.
2
See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/; http://www.citi
zenseismology.eu/.
As a result, China has been suffering from earthquake
disasters since the ancient times [7], with the 1556
Huaxian, Shaanxi, great earthquake being the most
destructive on record (with fatality over 820,000 according
to historical documentation). The combination of high
exposures (due to high population density) and vulner-
abilities causes higher seismic risk in the China mainland.
For the 110 years from 1900 to 2010, energy radiated by
major to great earthquakes in the China mainland
accounted for about 2.5% of that globally ([79]3 ,4 ), but
caused around 1/3 of the earthquake fatalities of the
world.
It is well-known that earthquake disaster exhibits dif-
ferent features at different stages of social development: for
a developing economy, reduction of fatalities has been one
of the challenging issues; for a developed economy, reduc-
tion of the economic and social impact becomes more
important. In addition at the present time China is facing
dual challenges, not only because of its rapid economic
development but also because of its huge territory with
diversity in economic and social development. In the west,
recent earthquakes caused tremendous casualties in the
May 12, 2008, Wenchuan (Sichuan) MS8.0 earthquake
(69,226 dead, 374,643 injured, and 17,923 missing, data
from Ref. [3]), the April 14, 2010, Yushu (Qinghai) MS7.1
earthquake (2,698 dead, 12,135 injured and 270 missing5 ),
and even the September 7, 2012, Yiliang (Yunnan) MS5.7
and 5.6 earthquakes (81 dead6 ). In the east, fast urbaniza-
tion and economic development have made seismic safety
one of the critical issues of sustainability. It is noticeable
that in some regions which are regarded as seismically
inactive, even moderate magnitude earthquakes may cause
unexpected disasters due to weak prevention, as shown by
the November 26, 2005, Jiujiang-Ruichang MS5.7 earth-
quake (with 13 dead).7 As a result, the social concern
related to seismic hazard in the China mainland can be
expressed by the earthquakes over MS7 in the vast western
China (west of 1071E) and those over MS6 in the densely
populated and economically developed eastern China main-
land. Based on background seismicity and social impor-
tance, keeping in mind that other regions have equal
importance for earthquake studies and preparedness, 3
regions are the focus of special attention, namely the central
China northsouth seismic belt (tectonically, the east mar-
gin of the Tibetan plateau and its northward extension), the
Tianshan seismic belt, and the North China region.
The May 12, 2008, Wenchuan MS8.0 earthquake (occurred
at 14:28:04 pm local time, in the southern part of the central
China northsouth seismic belt) is the most devastating
earthquake in China since 1976 (the great Tangshan earth-
quake). The earthquake, closely related to the interaction
3
In selecting the major to great earthquakes in the China mainland,
earthquake parameters since 1991 are from http://www.csndmc.ac.cn/
newweb/data.htm.
4
Earthquake parameters since 2000 are from http://www.globalcmt.
org/.
5
From http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-05/31/
c_13325439.htm.
6
From http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c011
6674a018300cf/yngz5.7/index.html.
7
http://baike.baidu.com/view/3536994.htm.
 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
between the Eurasian plate and the Indian plate [1], occurred
along the mid-to-north Longmenshan fault zone, rupturing
two parallel faults, about 240 km and 72 km long. The seismic
strong ground motion caused intensity up to XI on the
Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale, with the narrow-
ellipsoid-shaped MMI-IX isoseismal almost collocated with
the rupture zone, striking about 300 km north-eastward from
Dujiangyan to Guangyuan, Sichuan Province. A significant
ratio of deaths and injuries as well as missing were due to
the quake-induced landslides and/or rock falls [6,3].
3. Multi-scale seismic hazard and risk and its
consequences
3.1. Multi-scale seismic hazard in the China mainland
Fig. 1 shows the frequencymagnitude distribution of
earthquakes above MS5.0 in the China mainland from 1980/
01/01 to 2010/12/31 provided by the China Earthquake
Networks Center (CENC), a typical manifestation of the
multi-scale characteristic. It can be seen that the distribu-
tion is featured by the well-known log-linear Gutenberg
Richter distribution (or power-law scaling) of moderate to
major seismicity,8 and a deviation for major to great earth-
quakes (with earthquakes larger than MS7.5), being much
more than the simple power-law extrapolation.
In the perspective of seismo-genesis, one of the seismo-
tectonic hypotheses is that the China mainland can be
divided into several tectonic blocks [29], with most of the
major, and all of the great earthquakes distributed along
the block boundary zones [28], as shown in Fig. 2. Here a
common misunderstanding is that tectonic blocks indi-
cate the lower-order tectonic plates. Actually tectonic
blocks deal with the crust and tectonic plates with the
lithosphere. Different from tectonic plates, tectonic blocks
include three types according to the internal strain rate:
rigid (o109/a, such as the Ordors block), quasi-rigid
(109108/a, such as the North China block), and con-
tinuously deformable (4108/a, such as the blocks in the
Tibetan plateau).
As firstly proposed by P. Bird [19], even if with a small set
of samples, N42, global plate tectonics exhibit a fractal
characteristic. For the block tectonics there is a similar scale
invariance, as shown in Fig. 3. In the figure, eliminating the 4
blocks (the 3 blocks to the south, the West Yunnan block, the
South Yunnan block, and the South China Sea block, and the
Tianshan block to the west; refer Fig. 2) whose boundaries are
not closed due to the study region of Zhang et al. [29] due to
which the areas cannot be estimated accurately, and over-
coming the difficulty associated with the small sampling
number in the identification of scale invariance, we used the
Zipf-distribution or rank-ordering analysis method [20]. In the
figure, vertical axis is the area of a block, ranked monotoni-
cally by its area, and the horizontal axis is its rank order. The
straight line in the loglog rank-ordering plot indicates that
there are two ranges of scale invariance [20]. Note that the
8
Here we use the wording for the classification of earthquakes as
minor (4.04.9), moderate (5.05.9), strong (6.06.9), major (7.07.9), and
great (above 8.0).
23
first-rank block (the Xing'an-East Mongolia block) does not
have a close boundary and its area shown in the figure is
smaller than the actual area. This fractal-like distribution
indicates the multi-scale feature of block tectonics which
determines the multi-scale feature of seismicity.
3.2. Consequences of the multi-scale characteristic of seismic
hazard
In China, like in other places of the world [12], indexes
of exposure, such as population, GDP and city transporta-
tion networks, exhibit similar (piece-wise) power-law-like
distribution.9 Fig. 4 shows a conceptual sketch reflecting
the multi-scale feature of seismic hazard and exposure.
The power-law-like spacetimesize distribution of
earthquakes, as mentioned in the previous sub-section,
features the multi-scale characteristic of earthquake
hazard, probably not limited to the China mainland. This
multi-scale feature of seismic hazard has direct conse-
quences to seismic risk, when interacting with the multi-
scale feature of exposure and vulnerability as sketched in
Fig. 4. Bottom-line understanding is that, evaluating the
progresses and challenges in coping with the multi-scale
seismic hazard and risk, a single index (related to a certain
scale) seems insufficient.
The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake [3] highlighted the con-
sequences of such multi-scale feature. In the perspective of
seismic hazard, referring to Fig. 4(a), this earthquake shows
the challenge related to the up-scaling, or the extreme end,
of the distribution of seismic hazard. Since the beginning of
the 21st century, the Chinese government has been organizing
the capacity building of earthquake emergency and rescue.
The emergency and rescue teams had good training and
played an important role in the rescue and relief actions not
only in China but also abroad. The problem is that the size of
the team was not sufficient to cope with the tremendous
disaster caused by a great earthquake such as the Wenchuan
earthquake. On May 13, 2008, 10 h after the Wenchuan
mainshock, the national earthquake emergency rescue and
relief team of 184 people arrived at the earthquake area. The
national rescue team, working at 48 sites for 216 h, saved 49,
assisted in saving 36, and guided in saving 12 people.
Altogether 19 provincial rescue teams sent about 4000 people
to the field, saving 322 people from the ruins. Note that this is
the most difficult to save, needing professional skills and
equipments. Chengdu Military Area Command dispatched
50,000 troops and armed police to facilitate the relief, helping
tens of thousands of people rescued from the ruins. Some ten
thousand seriously injured were moved to hospitals outside
Sichuan Province all over the country. But the limitation of the
size of the professional rescue teams and access difficulties
due to landslides meant that the golden time period for
rescue and relief was missed.
In the perspective of seismic risk, a noticeable problem is
the long-tail of the distribution of engineering, as described
9
Due to size limit and the scope of this article, related references,
mostly in Chinese and published in economic and/or social science
journals, are not cited here. Searching for these results is easy using
online databases such as the China National Knowledge Infrastructure
(CNKI) database (http://www.cnki.net).
24 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133

in Fig. 4(b). In the Wenchuan earthquake, due to the engi-
neering measures based on the proper seismic design, the
1996 reservoirs and 495 dams in the affected region sustained
the mainshock and the strong aftershocks. On the other hand,
however, there were 7444 schools and about 100 million m2
rural residences damaged or destroyed, resulting in a terrible
number of the losses of life.
(for example, recurrence period of major earthquakes in
North China is of the order of 1000 or more years). But
for the whole China mainland (therefore for the central
government and the national seismological agencies), a
107

The China mainland has particularity related to its huge

size. Noticing the seemingly paradoxical situation related
to the multi-scale feature of seismic hazard might be
important in determining the policy for protecting against

S (km2)
and mitigating earthquake disasters in the China main- 106
land: for a specific region, earthquakes may be a rare event
Numbers of Earthquakes

10
105
100 101
Rank
10
Fig. 3. Rank-ordering analysis of the area S of (the second-order) tectonic
blocks (as shown in Fig. 2, marked by the names of different blocks).
Referring to Fig. 2, the 3 blocks to the south (the West Yunnan block, the
South Yunnan block, and the South China Sea block) and the Tianshan
10
5 5.5 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 block to the west are not included in the present figure because their
boundaries are not closed due to the study region of Zhang et al. [29] and
therefore their areas cannot be estimated accurately. The first-rank block
Fig. 1. Frequencymagnitude distribution of earthquakes above MS5.0 in (the Xing'an-East Mongolia block, as shown by the open box) does not
the China mainland from 1980 to 2010. Data are provided by the China have a close boundary and its area shown in the figure should be smaller
Earthquake Networks Center (CENC). Referring to Fig. 2, the cluster than the actual area. The rank-ordering figure shows two power-laws,
around the Taiwan island region is excluded in the frequencymagnitude albeit the transition between the two power-laws cannot be determined
statistics, highlighting continental earthquakes. accurately [20].

Fig. 2. Earthquakes in China and its surrounding regions, from 1900 to 2010, with boundaries of plates and tectonic blocks. In the figure, color of a block
shows the rigidity, or internal deformation, of the block: green color shows rigid blocks, yellow color shows quasi-rigid blocks, and red color shows
blocks with continuous deformation. See text for details. Data of the block boundaries are provided by Li Li, based on the results of Zhang et al. [29]. (For
interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
major earthquake is NOT a rare event: there are on average
2 major earthquakes in every 3 years. Fig. 5(a) shows, at a
longer time scale comparing to Fig. 1, the magnitudetime
distribution (the Mt diagram) of the earthquakes in the
Fig. 4. Conceptual sketch demonstrating the multi-scale feature of
seismic hazard (a) and exposure (b). Note that this is a loglog plot,
reflecting a power-law-like (or Zipf-type) distribution. Due to the con-
ceptual sketch nature, the piece-wise characteristic, as well as the slopes
(or scaling coefficients) for each piece, is not necessarily the real case
which is more complicated.
Fig. 5. Temporal distribution of earthquakes above MS7.0 in the China mainland from 1900 to 2010. Data are provided by the China Earthquake Networks
Center (CENC): (a) the China mainland and (b) the boundary zone of the Bayan Har block.
25
China mainland. Note that the period 19802010 (in which
the earthquake catalog is complete for events above MS5)
is not a high seismicity period.
On the other hand, the size of the China mainland also
provides advantages in the recovery process after destruc-
tive earthquakes. The Wenchuan earthquake, affecting 417
county-level units of 10 provinces, including 51 hard-hit
and/or extremely hard-hit (mainly in Sichuan, Gansu, and
Shaanxi Provinces), and affecting a population of about 20
million, is a recent example for such a recovery efficiency.
In September, 2008, 4 months after the earthquake, The
Overall Planning for Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration
and Reconstruction was ratified by the State Council, with
the aim that basic living conditions and the economic
development reach or surpass the pre-disaster level. The
reconstruction used a characterized Chinese mode that 19
provinces/cities are assigned to assist their counterparts in
the reconstruction (for example, Zhejiang Province has its
partner Qingchuan County), and had a modernized vision
that both living condition and economic development be
considered at the same time. In mid-2011, after three years
work, the State Council announced that the reconstruction
has been successfully completed.
Complex spatio-temporal pattern of earthquakes further
adds the challenge to cope with the multi-scale seismic
hazard and risk by an overall strategic deployment. From
1997 to the time when this manuscript was finished, the
Bayan Har block in western China was the unique contributor
to the major to great earthquakes in continental China, as
shown in Fig. 5(b). Along the boundary zones of this tectonic
block there occurred the 1997 Mani (Tibet) MS7.5 earthquake,
the 2001 Kunlunshan/Kokoxili (Qinghai) MS8.1 earthquake,
the 2008 Yutian (Xinjiang) MS7.3 earthquake, the 2008
26 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133

Urumqi
40

ur asian plate
E
35 Yinchuan
2001 M
2008 M7.3 8.1
The
Bay Xining
an H
1997 M7.5 ar b
lock
Xi'an
30
2010 M7.1

Lhasa
2008 M8.0
Chengdu
Chongqing
25

Indian plate Guiyang

80 85 90 95 100 105 110

Fig. 6. The Bayan Har block (filled by light blue) and the distribution of major to great earthquakes around the Bayan Har block from 1997 to 2012. To the
top right is the indexing figure of the position of the map. In the map, orange lines show the earthquake ruptures, and blue arrows show the focal
mechanism types of the earthquakes. Gray dots show the epicenters of historical major to great earthquakes on record. As larger-scale geodynamic
background, the arrow in gray to the bottom left shows, qualitatively and conceptually, the relative motion of the Indian plate with respect to the Eurasian
plate. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Wenchuan (Sichuan) MS8.0 earthquake, and the 2010 Yushu
(Qinghai) MS7.1 earthquake. Locations and focal mechanisms
of these earthquakes (shown in Fig. 6) imply the close relation
between tectonic blocks and earthquakes. But why this
tectonic block was the unique contributor of major to great
earthquakes to the seismicity in the China mainland for the
recent 1.5 decade, and what will be the future of this
tendency, is still not understood in geodynamics at the
present time. Importantly, mainstream geological and geody-
namic studies indicated (before 2008) that the mid-to-north
Longmenshan fault zone, which accommodated the 2008
Wenchuan great earthquake, is a dead fault zone, which
leads to the seismic zonation result of this region as Chinese
intensity (similar to MMI) VIVII, much lower than the actual
intensity shown in the Wenchuan earthquake.
4. Coping with the challenges: the national-level
endeavor
Suffering from destructive earthquakes through history,
Chinese society paid special attention to the reduction of
earthquake disasters [4,11]. The Law of the People's Republic of
China on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earthquake Disas-
ters, adopted on December 29, 1997, came into force as of
March 1, 1998. On December 27, 2008, The Law of the People's
Republic of China on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earth-
quake Disasters, amended and adopted at the 6th Meeting of
the Standing Committee of the Eleventh National People's
Congress of the People's Republic of China, was promulgated,
which went into effect as of May 1, 2009. On March 2, 2009,
ratified by the State Council, May 12, the day of the 2008
Wenchuan earthquake, was set as the National Day for
Protecting Against and Mitigating Natural Disasters. Since
the turn of the century, the China Earthquake Administration
(CEA), the successor of the State Seismological Bureau (SSB)
which was founded in 1971, has gradually established the
three-plus-one system, that is, (1) system for earthquake
disaster preparedness, (2) system for earthquake monitoring
and forecast, (3) system for earthquake emergency response,
rescue and relief, and (4) system for innovation of earth-
quake science and technology. Since 2005, the CEA has set its
dual missions, as the capacity building of itself to serve the
society, and promoting the capacity building of the whole
society for the reduction of earthquake disasters, with the
radical notion to reduce the losses of property and life caused
by earthquake disasters to the largest possible extent.
Research and development (R&D) plays an essential role
in the reduction of earthquake disasters. In August 2007,
sponsored by the China Earthquake Administration (CEA),
the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST), the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the Committee for
Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, the
National Conference on Earthquake Science and Technology
was held in Beijing, with the product The Strategic Plan of
National Earthquake Science and Technology Development
(20072020),10 outlining the scientific challenges and sug-
gestive actions in science and technology for the reduction of
10
http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c0116674a
018300cf/_content/10_01/28/1264640870755.html.
 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
earthquake disasters. Priorities identified for the reduction of
earthquake disasters include (1) theory and techniques for
earthquake monitoring; (2) continental tectonics and con-
tinental earthquakes; (3) oceanic seismology; (4) earthquake
forecast and prediction; (5) preparedness of earthquake
disasters; (6) techniques for earthquake emergency response
and rescue actions; and (7) seismological information service
to scientific communities and the public. At the end of 2006,
the State Council ratified the plan of the Ministry of Finance
and the Ministry of Science and Technology regarding the
budget of national institutions for science and technology of
public affairs. Since then China has established a new
mechanism for regularly supporting the science and tech-
nology for social sustainability, such like meteorological and
seismological R&D works. In the earthquake emergency
response to the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, the National
Expert Committee for the Wenchuan Earthquake was estab-
lished on May 21, 2008, by the State Council, highlighting the
role of science and technology in the reduction of earthquake
disasters. The Committee was assigned to provide technical
consultation to (1) strong aftershock tendency; (2) seismo-
tectonics; (3) earthquake mechanism; (4) evaluation of
losses; (5) secondary disasters; and (6) reconstruction and
recovery.
In the engineering perspective, the priorities listed in
The Strategic Plan of National Earthquake Science and
Technology Development (20072020) include (a) mapping
and seismic hazard assessment of active faults, especially
for cities and city clusters and large-scale and key engi-
neering, highlighting the Key Regions for enhanced mon-
itoring (for this concept see Section 5.2) and critical lifeline
systems; (b) observation and study of strong ground
motion and site response including liquefaction and large
deformation; (c) standards for the engineering protection
against earthquake disasters considering the level of
economic and social development; (d) mechanism of
nonlinear damage and collapse of engineering, assessment
of the state of health of engineering, new materials/
techniques for seismic safety, and reinforcement and
isolation techniques; (e) secondary disasters and concate-
nated disasters; and (f) post-earthquake assessment of
engineering destruction and economic losses. Most if not
all of these priorities have been studied through projects
supported by different funding agencies since 2007.
Since the turn of the century, infrastructures for seismo-
logical, geodetic and other geophysical observation and mon-
itoring have been developed and modernized considerably in
the China mainland.11 Infrastructure for GPS monitoring was
constructed jointly by the CEA and other geodetic and/or
geosciences agencies (the Crustal Movement Observation
Network of China, CMONOC, Phase I, 19972001; campaigns
1999, 2001, 2004, 2007; Phase II, 20072011). This brand-new
observation system attracted much attention in the interna-
tional scientific communities (for example, [23]). Almost in
parallel at the same time, the China Digital Seismological
Observation System was completed and began operation at
11
Chen, J.M., Earthquake disaster reduction in developing China,
Keynote Presentation, the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engi-
neering (WCEE), October 1217, 2008, Beijing, China; electronic version
available at http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/14_K002.pdf.
27
the end of 2000, which includes the National Digital Seismo-
graph Network, 20 regional digital seismograph networks,
and a mobile digital seismograph network consisting of 100
portable digital seismographs. Between 1999 and 2001, the
Beijing Capital-Circle Digital Seismograph Network (covering
Beijing Municipality, Tianjin Municipality, and Hebei Province)
with real-time data transmission was established, consist-
ing of 107 seismic stations. The China Digital Earthquake
Observation Networks Project, consisting of 6 components
(3 networks and 3 systems): a geophysical/geochemical-
anomaly monitoring network, a digital seismograph net-
work, and a digital strong motion network; an active fault
mapping system, an earthquake emergency commanding
system, and an earthquake information service system, was
launched in June 2004, and passed the acceptance inspection
in April 2008, just one month before the Wenchuan
earthquake.
The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was one of the harsh
and comprehensive tests of earthquake science and tech-
nology and the preparedness, mitigation, and management
of earthquake disasters. Taking the lessons and experiences
of the Wenchuan earthquake, in July, 2008, the CEA
organized the Scientific Review and Reflection of the Wench-
uan Earthquake,12 a campaign participated in by hundreds
of experts and tens of institutions and/or provincial earth-
quake administrations within the framework of the CEA.
The internal reports were completed in mid-2009, with 4
reports to different readers: (1) overall summary report; (2)
summary report of the work of the CEA; (3) summary
report to the central government; and (4) summary outline
to the society for public understanding. The reports include
6 topical issues: (1) social management and public service;
(2) seismological monitoring; (3) earthquake forecast; (4)
preparedness and engineering; (5) earthquake emergency
response; and (6) science and technology. Guided by a
Working Committee composed of 105 experts, and con-
sulted by a Consultation Committee of 66 senior experts
(Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the
Chinese Academy of Engineering), the reports proposed
several operational suggestions which lead to the actions
within the 12th five-year plan (20112015) of China, with
some actions targeting 2020. The five-year plan and long-
term plan in China take a similar approach as the Science
and Technology Foresight.13 In the 21st century, the plans
gradually evolved into a system, including 13 compo-
nents,14 namely, (1) legislation related to the reduction of
earthquake disasters; (2) technical standards; (3) social
management and public service; (4) public understanding
and outreach; (5) seismological and geophysical/geodetic/
geochemical monitoring; (6) earthquake forecast/predic-
tion; (7) disaster prevention and preparedness; (8) earth-
quake emergency and rescue; (9) earthquake science and
technology; (10) land use and construction of the CEA
facilities; (11) personnel and education; (12) international
collaboration; and (13) information infrastructure. In 2010,
12
http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c0116674a
018300cf/_content/08_08/12/1218526303327.html.
13
For example, see https://www.unido.org/foresight.
14
http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c0116674a
018300cf/_content/12_03/05/1330914129520.html.
28 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
the State Council published the Open File Guidelines for
Further Strengthening the Works for Protecting Against and
Mitigating Earthquake Disasters,15 formulating several prio-
rities in the next decade. In 2011, the Committee for Science
and Technology of the China Earthquake Administration
(CEA), cooperating with the Division of Geophysics of the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), pub-
lished the strategic report Seismological Grand Challenges for
the Reduction of Earthquake Disasters in China [24],16 dis-
cussing 7 grand challenges, including (1) earthquake rup-
ture, (2) near-surface structure, strong ground motion, and
earthquake disaster, (3) interaction of tectonic blocks, and
relation with earthquakes, (4) stress and strain near the
ground surface and in deep, and relation with earthquakes,
(5) structure, deformation, and uprising of the Tibetan
plateau, and relation with earthquakes, (6) time-lapse
process of near-surface structure, and relation with earth-
quakes, and (7) earth structure and geodynamics, and
relation with earthquakes. Two major projects were pro-
posed by the report, namely the construction of a moder-
nized geophysical observation system, and the outreach and
education related to earthquake science and technology.
5. Scientic products serving the society: tested by and
improved after the Wenchuan earthquake
5.1. Earthquake hazard assessment, seismic zonation, and
seismic design
Since the 1950s, four generations of seismic zonation
map have been published in China (in 1957, 1977, 1990,
and 2001). Codes for seismic design of industrial and
civilian buildings, as well as their revisions, came into
effect in 1974, 1978, 1984, 1989, 1990, and 2001, based on
the zonation results [3]. The principal aim of the seismic
design has been no collapse during large earthquakes,
repairable after intermediate-size earthquakes, and no
damage during small earthquakes, which helped much
for the public engineering and civil buildings to sustain the
strong motion, even if in the might-be-the-worst case of
Wenchuan with the high-underestimation of the seismic
intensity along the mid-to-north Longmenshan fault zone.
Noticing the weak capability of seismic safety in the rural
areas, before the Wenchuan earthquake, a nationwide
project for the reinforcement of rural residences had been
underway. The Wenchuan earthquake occurred at the time
when the project was on-going in Sichuan Province. A
sharp comparison was that destruction was much lessened
for the regions where the reinforcement had been com-
pleted. After the Wenchuan earthquake, this project was
accelerated and strengthened. Moreover, a national project
of the reinforcement of school buildings was launched
after the earthquake. Two important lessons from the
15
http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c0116674a
018300cf/_content/10_09/26/1285465244112.html.
16
The structure of this report is similar to, and probably hinted at by,
the IRIS report (2008) Seismological Grand Challenges in Understanding
Earths Dynamic Systems (http://www.iris.edu/hq/lrsps/seis_plan_final.
pdf) but specifically focuses on the earthquake disaster problem, con-
sidering the special situation in the China mainland.
Wenchuan earthquake were that, firstly, active faults were
the major threat to buildings, with clear hanging-wall
effect related to the thrust rupture, and secondly, quake-
induced landslides caused tremendous disasters, indicating
that secondary disasters are by no means of secondary
importance. These lessons were taken into full account in
the reinforcement.
The Wenchuan earthquake reflects the blind spots of
modern seismology and geology as per the seismo-genic
tectonics, which affected the estimation of the seismic hazard
of the Longmenshan fault zone. Aiming at the deepening of
the understandings of seismo-tectonics, in 2010, the CEA
launched a long-term national project till 2020 which con-
tains three components: (1) nationwide active fault mapping;
(2) geophysical background field mapping; and (3) the
ChinArray for the step-by-step geophysical imaging of the
lithosphere structure of the China mainland. The design of the
ChinArray is quite similar to that of the USArray17 but with a
more dense inter-station spacing of 35 km considering the
need of seismotectonic studies. The ChinArray Phase I, con-
ducted in the Yunnan-Sichuan region, deployed 500 broad-
band seismic stations, with regional seismic networks as
backbone, aiming at the imaging of the 3-D structure of the
crust and upper mantle by 24 months observation. Seismic
sounding (520 km), MT sounding (1200 km), geomagnetic
(1200 km), and gravity profiles (2200 km) were deployed
accounting for the regional seismo-tectonics. Active source
monitoring was tested in western Yunnan,18 as the starting of
the network of seismic emission stations. By the end of 2012,
the ChinArray Phase II (north part of the central northsouth
seisimic belt) was ratified and started.
5.2. Forecast of time-dependent earthquake hazard: decade
and annual scale
At the time scale of 515 years, a national research
project organized by the CEA [16], using geological, seismo-
logical, and geophysical methods, identified several Key
Regions Subject to Special Monitoring which are estimated
as probable for earthquakes over MS7 in the west and
earthquakes over MS6 in the east, for the 1.5 decade period
from 2006 to 2020. The identification of such Key Regions
has relatively sound scientific basis and contributed much to
the local preparedness for earthquake disasters. Among the
17 Key Regions identified in western China, the south-to-mid
Longmenshan fault zone was identified as probable for
earthquakes over MS7. In contrast, almost all other methods
failed to identify the Longmenshan fault zone as seismically
dangerous at different time scales. Based on this result, after
the Wenchuan earthquake, the CEA organized a working
group on the long- to intermediate-term forecast of major to
great earthquakes [21].
Started in 1972 and officially formalized in 1975, the
Annual Consultation Meeting on the Likelihood of Earth-
quakes in the Next Year has been one of the important
activities organized in China to deal with the seismic hazard
17
http://www.usarray.org/.
18
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/02/air-guns-sha
ke-up-earthquake-mon.html.
 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
at annual scale. At the turn of the year, seismologists use
their methods of precursor/anomaly identification and earth-
quake forecast/prediction to identify the areas with increased
probability of earthquakes in the coming year. An ad hoc
group of experts conduct the evaluation of the proposed
precursors/anomalies and the forecast/prediction. By com-
bining tectonic, seismic, and other geophysical information,
the group of experts draws conclusions about the seismic
tendency in the next year and identifies the areas with
higher seismic risk. This working group writes a report to the
CEA, and the CEA in turn reports these results to the central
government. In the regions which are expected to have a
higher probability of earthquakes, seismological monitoring
is strengthened, and some long-term engineering/social
countermeasures are taken accordingly. Only few results of
the annual consultation meetings have been published in the
widely-accessible academic journals. In the early 1990s some
foreign seismologists were invited to participate in the
meeting. American seismologist Wu [25] gave an introduc-
tion to the history and the state-of-the-art of the annual
consultation. Seismological Press in Beijing has published
some of the research results (in Chinese) related to the
annual consultation, released to the public after three years
because of the sensitivity and uncertainty of the present
study of earthquake predictability. Evaluation of the perfor-
mance of the annual consultation leads to objective conclu-
sions on the present capability of the estimation of annual
seismic hazard [18,30], which shows that on average the
annual consultation, with both successful and unsuccessful
(including failures-to-forecast and false-alarms) estimates,
significantly outperforms random forecasts, while this appar-
ent success is, to a large extent, dependent on the probabil-
istic estimation of background seismicity. The unique
scientific merit of the annual consultation meeting lies in
the fact that as a real forward forecast/prediction test, it has
been persistently conducted for 4 decades. Again the annual
consultation has the problem of up-scaling: while it cap-
tured some of the strong to major earthquakes, at the
beginning of 2008, the Annual Consultation failed to identify
the middle-to-north Longmenshan fault zone as the poten-
tial region for earthquake/s over MS7, and obtained an under-
estimate of the maximum magnitude in 2008 for the whole
China mainland (MS7).
5.3. Earthquake forecast/prediction: in Chinese versus in
English
The decade from 1966 to 1976 was a seismically active
period in the China mainland. During this period there
occurred 9 major earthquakes. Chinese seismological
agencies carried out extensive studies and experiments
on earthquake forecast/prediction, with both successes
and failures [15,2], including the successful (but still
controversial) prediction of the 1975 Haicheng M7.3 earth-
quake and the failure to predict the tragic 1976 Tangshan
M7.8 earthquake. The foreshock information used to pre-
dict the Haicheng earthquake was selected in 1991 by the
IASPEI Sub-Committee of Earthquake Prediction as one of
the three significant precursors [26,27], but other precur-
sors as well as the forecast-based decision-making process
were questioned [10,22]. The precursor-hunting
29
experiment lasted till today, with both successes and
failures. Retrospectively investigated, there were several
precursor-like anomalies before the 2008 Wenchuan
earthquake (for a review, see [14]), but none of these
anomalies was so conclusive as to lead to the
intermediate-term or short-term alarm of the earthquake.
Although the original purpose for establishing the State
Seismological Bureau in 1971 was to a large extent to
coordinate the study and application of earthquake fore-
cast/prediction, it has to be noticed that the Chinese wording
earthquake forecast/prediction (study) has a much broader
meaning as compared to the earthquake forecast/prediction
(study) in English, a cultural difference similar to the
difference between the Chinese Long and the western
dragon. In China, earthquake forecast/prediction includes
a wide range of issues, from seismic hazard assessment,
time-dependent seismic hazard estimate, intermediate-term
medium-range earthquake forecast, to short-and-imminent-
term earthquake prediction, further to the assessment of the
type of earthquake sequence (swarm, or mainshock-after-
shocks) and the likelihood of strong aftershocks, and to the
evaluation of a specific earthquake forecast/prediction. Simi-
larly, when Chinese seismological agencies talk about earth-
quake forecast/prediction study, they are talking about
almost everything in geosciences and physical sciences
which are directly or indirectly related to the estimation of
seismic hazard at different spatio-temporal scales. In 2010
the CEA published the Open File Guidelines for Strengthening
Seismological Monitoring and Earthquake Forecast,19 further
highlighting the five-combinations policy, namely (1) the
combination of long-term, intermediate-term, short-and-
imminent-term forecast, and sequence type and aftershock
forecast; (2) the combination of seismological monitoring,
earthquake forecast, and earthquake early warning; (3) the
combination of monitoring, research, forecast test, and fore-
cast application; (4) the combination of the CEAs work and
the works of the other institutions/agencies as well as the
public; and (5) the combination of earthquake forecast/
prediction with disaster reduction countermeasures, reflect-
ing the holistic view of the Chinese approach.
The long-term to intermediate-term earthquake forecast
in China, expressed by the identification of the Key Regions
for strengthened monitoring and preparedness at the 1015
year time scale, the 3-year time-scale and whole-China-
continent spatial-scale seismic tendency, and the annual-
scale consultation, are all featured by the real forward
forecast test and provide unique experiences for the assess-
ment of seismic hazard. The case-based evaluation of
earthquake forecast/prediction and the timeplace-targeted
assessment of time-dependent seismic hazard (such as for
the spatio-temporal window for the 2008 Beijing Olympic
Games) also provide interesting case examples for opera-
tional earthquake forecast [11]. Chen Zhangli, former
director-general of the China Seismological Bureau (CSB,
19962001), recorded and discussed some interesting (and
to a large extent unique) case examples for the leaders of
the national and local seismological agencies to make hard
19
http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c0116674a
018300cf/_content/11_03/28/1301300870907.html.
30 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
decisions based on the short-term forecast with significant
uncertainty [5].
5.4. Seismological information service: meeting the needs of
our web times
Seismological information service provided to the gov-
ernment and the public was far from satisfactory during the
Wenchuan earthquake, partly because the upgraded seismo-
logical monitoring system had just begun its testing-mode
operation for less than 2 months when the Wenchuan
earthquake struck. Rapid prediction of the final fatality
provided an embarrassingly underestimated result, at least
partly due to the use of a point source concept. The seismic
recordings of the Wenchuan mainshock in the Beijing
Capital-Circle Region mis-triggered an event report of a
ML3.9 earthquake in Beijing. The automatic regional CMT
solution of the mainshock provided by the China Earthquake
Networks Center (CENC) was shown to be incorrect, at least
partly due to the lack of an analyst-review procedure. After
the Wenchuan earthquake, taking these lessons into account,
the CEA led a campaign to improve the seismological
information service based on the up-to-date science and
technology, learning from the experiences of the interna-
tional advanced seismological agencies such as the USGS/
NEIC. The CEA distributes the jobs of seismological informa-
tion products among its institutions, establishing a mechan-
ism to work in a 7  24 mode on routine basis, providing fast
reports of the earthquake rupture process, improved location
of aftershock sequence, focal mechanisms of the mainshock
and aftershocks, ground motion characterization and loss
estimation, and tectonic background information, among
others, depending on the magnitude and location of the
earthquake. The Chinese version of earthquake poster has
started to be produced and published on-line since 2009.
The CEA also established a mechanism to cooperate with
news media for the fast seismological information service.
Micro-blogs and cell-phone messages are used to meet the
needs of fast earthquake information service to target end-
users. This endeavor was tested successfully during the
emergency response to the 2010 Yushu MS7.1 earthquake.
Facilitating the earthquake information service not only for
earthquake emergency but also for earthquake disaster
preparedness, in 2010, the CEA launched the Social Earth-
quake Safety Service Engineering, based on the nodes of
regional and local earthquake administrations.
The surface wave magnitude of the Wenchuan earth-
quake was firstly determined as MS7.8 by quick report, and
was revised, on May 18, 2012, to MS8.0 with more data
available and more recordings checked, based on the
consultation of an expert panel. This is the first time for
Chinese seismological agency to officially revise the mag-
nitude of an earthquake. Before this time, the quick
estimates of the magnitudes of earthquakes were never
revised, even if with large bias/uncertainty, with concern
not to cause misunderstandings in the society. After the
Wenchuan earthquake, Chinese public became more and
more adapted to the quick-but-rough estimate of earth-
quake magnitude and the later revised report. This is also
an interesting case of the impact of devastating earth-
quakes to science and its public understanding.
After the 2010 Yushu earthquake, earthquake early warn-
ing became an issue with governmental and social attention.
The establishment of the national system for the fast report
of seismic intensity and earthquake early warning is just
underway. The system merges two major observational
components, namely the seismic observation network and
the strong motion observation network, which have been
independent of each other for a long time. The service of this
system is designed as the fast report of seismic intensity, the
earthquake early warning for specific regions, and the earth-
quake early warning for selected key engineering such as
nuclear power plant and high-speed railway. The CEA and
the Ministry of Railway Transportation signed the coopera-
tion protocol for the R&D works related to the earthquake
early warning system (EEWS). In China, the particularity of
an EEWS lies in the huge size of the territory, diffused
distribution of earthquakes, and the infrequent character of
seismic activity. In this case, the widely used concepts of
earthquake early warning, such as front-detection EEWS and
on-site EEWS, have to be used, and can be used, in a hybrid
and varied form.
6. The hierarchical actors network: problems and
progresses
Earthquake disaster in the China mainland is featured by
temporal scales from centuries to months, spatial scales
from the whole mainland to specific engineering structures,
and energy scales from great disastrous earthquakes to
small earthquakes causing social disturbance and economic
loss. Coping with this challenge needs not only the national
level countermeasures but also the wide participation of the
public. Using the language of the actor network theory
(ANT) in science studies or the sociology of science,20 there
is a need for a hierarchical actors network, making the
science transformed to the actions of the public for the
preparedness, mitigation, and management of multi-scale
earthquake disasters. Role of national seismological agen-
cies should be the coordination of the forming of such an
actors network. The mean measure for such coordination
is the scientific products, or in the language of ANT, the 4
key ingredients of translation processproblematization,
interessment, enrollment, and mobilization of allies, based
on the scientific products.
The effect of such hierarchical actor's network can be
visualized by an example in Xinjiang.21 The February 24,
2003, Bachu-Jiashi MS6.8 earthquake (origin time: 10:03 am
local time) caused 268 deaths, reflecting the exposure
and vulnerability in the affected area. From 2004 to 2008,
with the financial support from the central and local
governments, and contribution from social, public, and self
investment, 1.52 million houses were reinforced throughout
Xinjiang. Designs and construction materials were provided
by the national and/or local governmental agencies. On
October 5, 2008 (local time 23:52 pm), a MS6.8 earthquake
struck Wuqia, near the Bachu-Jiashi area but centered in
20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory.
21
Data from the Earthquake Administration of the Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region, 2012.
 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
Kyrgyzstan around 10 km from the border with Xinjiang,
with zero deaths in the China side. Since 2005 there
occurred 55 earthquakes above MS5 in the populated rural
areas of Xinjiang. For all the earthquakes above MS5 there
were no injuries; for all the earthquakes above MS6 there
were no deaths.
Local governments and the public play a crucial role in
overcoming the long-tail problem. In 2010, the CEA
published the Open File Guidelines for Strengthening the
Works at the City and County Level for Protecting Against and
Mitigating Earthquake Disasters.22 Technical standards and
legislation act as the bonds linking different elements of
the society to form a network. The CEA has established
some show-case models for the problematization, interess-
ment, enrollment, and mobilization of alliesalthough not
necessarily using the language of ANT. Since recent years,
one of the significant advances in this aspect is that the
CEA has closer relation with local governments, and has
closer cooperation with the public. The CEA provincial
agencies serve as the headquarters of the local govern-
ments for earthquake emergency response. In more and
more places, reduction of earthquake disasters has been
enrolled into the development index system to examine
the performance of local governmental agencies. Along the
Tancheng-Lujiang fault of the east coast of China which
had some severely destructive earthquakes in history and
sometimes being called (inexactly but vividly) as the San
Andreas fault along the west Pacific coast, the major cities
subject to seismic risk have established an inter-cities
association for seismic disaster protection and mitigation.
The CEA institutions provide forecast-based scientific
information service to the government and, through the
government, to the public. At the present time, the 1015
years estimation of the key regions for enhanced monitoring
has shown its relatively sound scientific basis and potentials
for application for the preparedness. The 3 years estimation
of seismic hazard (performance not evaluated yet) and the
annual consultation (with hit rate about 20%30%, and
statistically outperforming random forecast) help to a large
extent the local preparedness. The assessment of the type of
earthquake sequence and the likelihood of strong after-
shocks has relatively sound scientific basis and has played
a positive role in assisting the rescue and relief actions
as well as the reconstructions. The case-based evaluation
of earthquake forecast/prediction has contributed much
to avoid the negative effects associated with the non-
scientific forecast/prediction. The case-specific special-
timespace-oriented consultation at least enhances the
monitoring alert level and avoids the unnecessary social
disorder. One dramatic example was when the seismological
agency announced to the organization committee of the
1990 Beijing Asian Games, based on the analysis of seismicity
and geophysical anomalies, that probably there would be
small earthquake/s occurring during the Asian Games but it
would be unlikely destructive, and just before the opening
ceremony there occurred a felt earthquake. In 2008 the CEA
invited several experts not only in China but also from
22
http://www.cea.gov.cn/manage/html/8a8587881632fa5c0116674a
018300cf/_content/11_03/28/1301300803614.html.
31
abroad to evaluate the forecast made by a Russian group
indicating that there would be a strong earthquake near
Beijing around the time of the Olympic Games. The evalua-
tion turned down the forecast, and it was shown that the
evaluation was correct. On the other hand, taking the above
mentioned boundary condition of the capability of the
estimation of time-dependent seismic hazard, how to con-
nect the probability (or the increase of the probability) of
earthquakes to the decision-making practice by the govern-
ment and the public is still one of the issues in need of
discussion and improvement, as shown by several cases of
earthquake rumors and the social disturbance associated
with earthquake panic. On May 19, 2008, a TV-broadcasted
message of a probable strong aftershock caused widespread
panic in the cities near the epicenter, and along the extension
of the seismic fault, of the Wenchuan earthquake, including
Chengdu and Xi'an, among others. If the public were aware
of the possible consequences of such a strong aftershock
(forecasted to be magnitude 7), even if qualitatively compar-
ing to the consequences of the mainshock (magnitude 8, or,
about 30 times larger), there would not be such irrational
disturbance.
The most important challenge might be the coupling of
earthquake forecast/prediction with disaster reduction
countermeasures. With the present limit of the capacity of
forecast, if the forecast can be used for the ifthen
prediction of strong motions and economic impacts, and
to serve the risk management, disaster preparedness, and
capacity building, then the forecast will be useful. Other-
wise, if the government and the public are exposed directly
to a forecast, with large uncertainties, of a probable
explosion of a bomb (note that news media prefer to talk
about the TNT-yield equivalence of an earthquake, and the
problem is that even if a moderate earthquake can be
related to an A-bomb), then the decision-making for risk
management will automatically change to the decision-
making for emergency. As shown by the B. T. Brady
prediction debate in the 1970s and the L'Aquila -2009 case
(China mainland has many similar, although not so unbe-
lievably dramatic, experiences), in this situation, a natural
disaster may be changed to a technological accident, just due
to the incorrect understanding of the role of the forecast.
The Wenchuan earthquake attracted widespread atten-
tion of the public, and raised a new question as per the
communication with the public through news media. Being
the first time for emergency people and scientific commu-
nity to be exposed to the media in the emergency response
stage (note that the first CEA Training Course of Media
Spokesman was held on May 710, 2008), neither the
performance of scientists nor that of the Chinese news
media was as good as expected. Rampant misunderstanding
about the predictability of earthquakes, with many of the
agenda for discussion and debate obsolete even 30 years
ago (that is, blaming seismologists for not predicting the
earthquake, claiming that predictions had been made by
amateur seismologists but neglected by the CEA, and using
the language of political violence to discuss the scientific
issues of earthquake prediction), marked a significant draw-
back of the public understanding of earthquake forecast,
being a disruption to the emergency response, rescue and
relief. It took a long time to recover from this drawback
32 Z. Wu et al. / International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 4 (2013) 2133
which was mainly initiated and promoted by news media.
About one month after the Wenchuan earthquake, news
media reported that Japanese seismologists could predict
an earthquake several seconds before its occurrence, which
was actually a misunderstanding of the performance of the
earthquake early warning system (EEWS) during the Iwate
Miyagi Nairiku earthquake on June 14, 2008.
7. Concluding remarks and discussion
Regarding to the reduction of earthquake disaster risk in
the China mainland there is sometimes seemingly controver-
sial evaluation. On one hand, rapid progresses have been
witnessed in recent years. On the other hand, destructive
earthquakes kept revealing many weaknesses. To understand
this paradoxical situation, the multi-scale feature of earth-
quake hazard and risk might be a key factor. In this review we
provided a sketch of such a perspective. Instead of the review
of academic literature, we tried to provide some information
which is not well-known in the scientific publications in
English. This is, therefore, to a large extent a personal
perspective mainly based on the third-eye observation, not
necessarily representing the official views of the China Earth-
quake Administration (CEA) or the widely accepted views of
the Chinese seismological community. One of the factors
which make us emphasize this personal perspective char-
acter is that, in general, there would be fewer problems for
each piece of information collected, but what are the impor-
tant ones to be highlighted and what is the panoramic picture
are, to a large extent, complicated. In the discussion we tried
to use the multi-scale concept, and tried to use the concept of
ANT. Instead of either critical or praising appraisal, we tried to
provide a descriptive, neutral and somehow constructive
overview. We are not confident as to what extent our review
may be of help to clarify some of the misunderstandingsat
least not causing new misunderstandings. Nevertheless, the
sketch overview is worth trying, not only because the reflec-
tion of the progresses and challenges is essential for the
future, but also because, in the perspective of international
exchange, the differences between the China mainland and
other places of the World may help to understand what has
been considered and what has been done in this region, and
the common features of the Chinese approaches and those in
other countries/regions may be heuristic to the comparative
studies aiming at the reduction of earthquake disaster risk.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Timothy Horscroft, review papers coordina-
tor for Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduction, Elsevier, for the invitation
and help in writing the manuscript, and to the anonymous
reviewers whose comments and editing helped much to
improve the paper. The present review is based on the invited
talk at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting, Session NH13B* Asia-Pacific
Region Global Earthquake and Volcanic Eruption Risk Manage-
ment, with thanks to principal convener Prof. Alik Ismail-
Zadeh for the invitation. This review also uses some of the
materials of the chapter for the Wenchuan earthquake (by Z.L.
Wu and T.F. Ma, invited by A. Ismail-Zadeh), in Extreme
Natural Hazards, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications (Eds.
A. Ismail-Zadeh, J. Fucugaughi, A. Kijko, K. Takeuchi and
I. Zaliapin, to be published 2013 by Cambridge University
Press). Z. Wu thanks the CEA for the authorization for
presentation at some international symposia.23 Collection of
the data was supported by the ChinArray Project (Phase-I) and
the Wenchuan earthquake Fault Scientific Drilling (WFSD)
Project, and helped to a large extent by Prof. Li Li.
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