Description
This paper firstly introduces the disaster (public security) status quo and situation of China briefly, and then gives a detailed explanation of the integrated disaster risk management system. China is one of the most natural disaster affected countries in the world.
Session III: Financial Management: Role of Insurance Industry, Financial
Markets, and Governments
Part B: Developing Country Perspective
Integrated Disaster Risk Management
of China
Peijun Shi1,2,3, Jing Liu1,2, Qinghai Yao4, Di Tang4, Xi Yang1,2
(1.Institute of Disaster and Public Security, College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing
Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
2. Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Natural Disaster, MOE, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing 100875, China;
3. Acadamy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Civil Affairs &
Ministry of Education, the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100875, China;
4. Insurance Intermediaries Regulatory Department, China Insurance Regulatory Commission,
Beijing 100000, China.)
* Supported by Funds for Talented Professionals of
National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No.40425008)
National Key Technologies R&D Program
(No. 2006BAD20B03)
Hyderabad, India
February 26th -27th 2007
1
Integrated Disaster Risk Management of China
Peijun Shi1,2,3, Jing Liu1,2, Qinghai Yao4, Di Tang4, Xi Yang1,2
(1.Institute of Disaster and Public Security, College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing
Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
2. Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Natural Disaster, MOE, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing 100875, China;
3. Acadamy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Civil Affairs &
Ministry of Education, the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100875, China;
4. Insurance Intermediaries Regulatory Department, China Insurance Regulatory Commission,
Beijing 100000, China.)
Abstract: This paper firstly introduces the disaster (public security) status quo and situation of
China briefly, and then gives a detailed explanation of the integrated disaster risk management
system. China is one of the most natural disaster affected countries in the world. The disaster risk
reduction work in China includes the pre-disaster decentralized management with separate fields
and departments, the in-disaster integrated emergency management, and the post-disaster
different-level cooperation between the central government and the local governments. So it can
be regarded that the Chinese disaster risk management system depends mainly on the central
management, with the mutual cooperation between the central government and the local
governments. The integrated disaster risk management of China emphasizes the management
mechanism of “combine the bars (the professional technology departments) and the blocks (the
local governments), and mainly depend on the blocks”; the final goal of the integrated disaster
reduction is to “realize the horizontal harmonization to the margin without dead angle and the
vertical harmonization to the end without blank”; the Chinese disaster risk management strategy
persists in the principle of “give priority to disaster prevention, and combine disaster prevention
with disaster resistance and relief”. The natural disaster risk management is mainly taken charge
by the civil affair departments of China and the insurance regulatory departments. As the key
guaranteeing strategies for national sustainable development, the agriculture insurance and the
large-scale catastrophe insurance are now under the stage of research and experiment. Some
provinces of China have carried out the agriculture natural disaster insurance.
Key words: Natural disaster; disaster risk management; emergency and disaster reduction; China
China is one of the most natural disaster affected countries in the world. The
Chinese government has been attaching much importance to disaster reduction work
since 1949, and much structural and non-structural construction has been
accomplished to improve the natural disaster resistant ability of China, mainly in the
fields of flood and drought mitigation, earthquake mitigation, tide protection, etc,
which protects the people’s life and property and promote the socio-economic
development.
However, China is at the transitional stage of economy and society. The economy
2
is developing at a high speed, while the society productivity development level is
unbalanced. The foundation of the public security guaranteeing system is poor, and
the heavy accidents and events occur constantly. It’s estimated that every year, the
economic loss caused by disasters (public security problems) amounts to hundreds of
billion RMB, 3%-6% of China’s total GDP. So the pubic security events have brought
about great influence on the people’s daily life and social sustainable development.
Facing the serious public security events happening constantly these years, such as the
heavy tropical storm, SARS, fowl influenza, Benzene pollution in Songhua River, etc,
in order to minimize the socio-economic loss and bad influence of the public security
events, the Chinese government has enhanced the disaster risk (public security)
management from all government levels, both the central and the local governments.
The Emergency Management Office of State Council at the national level
establishment is established and the public emergency planning has been promulgated
and implemented. Also according to some main public security factors, a series of
laws, regulations and decisions have been carried out. At present, the Chinese
integrated disaster risk management is still at the initial development stage, and has
some problems needed to improving. So it’s supposed to promote and consummate
the disaster risk management on the base of the existing work, and establish a
scientific and efficient integrated disaster risk management system. Meanwhile, it’s
significant to assimilate the worldwide advanced disaster risk management experience
and technology, and strengthen the international cooperation in this field, with the
purpose of making the whole world safer.
1
Issues of Disasters (Public Security) in
China
According to the Master State Plan for Rapid Response to Public Emergencies of
China, the public security events are divided into four kinds, namely natural disasters,
industry accidents, public health emergencies and social security emergencies.
1.1 Natural Disasters
With the special geographic position of facing the pacific in the east, China has
the monsoon-controlled climate and the southeast coast areas are strongly influenced
by typhoon; China lies in the world major seismic belt and has a frequent earthquake
occurring; the terrain condition is complicated in China, and the area proportion of the
hill region and the plateau region in the whole country reaches 69%, with severe soil
and water lost, wind erosion and desertification. This geographic environment
determines that natural disaster of China has the following characteristics: multiple
natural hazards, high frequency of hazard occurring, significant regional
differentiation and seasonal characteristic and severe disaster losses.
3
China is prone to nearly all natural hazards of varying magnitude except
volcanoes. There are five main natural disasters threatening China: flood, drought,
earthquake, typhoon and landslide/mudslide, and the losses caused by these five main
natural disasters come up to 80%-90% of the annual disaster-loss total. The frequency
of natural hazards is high, with large-scale drought of the average frequency over 7,
floods 5.8, typhoon 7, Low Temperature and Freeze 2.5, each year since 1949. With
the influence of monsoon climate, China has significant regional and seasonal
characteristics. The droughts mainly distribute in the Northwest Loess Plateau and the
North China Plateau in spring and autumn; the floods mainly distribute in the seven
large river basins, especially in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River and
Huaihe River in summer and autumn. The Losses caused by natural disasters is also
very severe. In the general year, the natural disaster affected agricultural area is about
one third of the nation total farmland area, of which one third is no-crop harvest area;
the disaster affected population is around 200 million, and the urgently transferred
person number is over 3 million; the Collapsed building number is around 3 million.
In 2006, the status of natural disasters in China is more serious than the
preceding 6 years (Tab. 1). The death toll and direct economic loss were the highest in
the recent 8 years since 1999, only urgently transferred people less than that of 2005,
and the number of collapsed buildings was less than that of 2003 and 2005, though the
proportion of the direct economic loss to the national GDP each year is declining with
fluctuation since 1989 (Fig. 1). Generally speaking, the casualty of natural disasters in
2006 is mainly caused by typhoon, flood, landslide and Debris Flow in the East China,
South China and southeast part of China.
Tab. 1 Disaster loss of China in 2001-2006
Year
Affected
person
(million
persons)
Death toll
(person)
urgently
transferred
people
(million
persons)
Direct
economic
loss
(billion
RMB)
Collapsed
building
(thousand
houses)
2001
372.559
2538
2.111
194.22
922
2002
427.98
2384
4.718
163.72
1895
2003
497.459
2259
7.073
188.42
3430
2004
339.206
2250
5.633
160.23
1550
2005
406.537
2567
15.703
204.21
2264
2006
3186
13.845
4
252.81
1933
The Proportion of Natual Disaster Loss to
the National GDP
20
05
20
03
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
93
19
91
19
89
6.00
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
Fig. 1 The proportion of the direct economic loss to the national GDP each year
from 1989 to 2006
1.2 Industrial Accidents
Around 717,900 industrial accidents occurred in 2005, killing 127,100 persons,
down 10.7 and 7.1 percent from the year 2004, leading to 89 billion RMB direct
economic loss. But big accidents with more than 10 persons killed happened 136
times, killed 3084 persons, up 3.8 and 18.3 percent than previous year. Huge accidents
with more than 30 persons killed happened 17 times, killed .1197 persons, up 6.3 and
27.9 percent. In coal mine and transportation industries, big and huge accidents were
still not well controlled.
Tab. 2 Times and death toll of four major kinds of industrial accidents in China in 2005
Type
Total
times
Total
death toll
(person)
Coal mine and other
industrial enterprises’
accident
13142
15868
Fire accident
235941
Transportation
accident
Public establishment
and special
equipment accident
Times of
Huge
accidents
13
Death toll
in huge
accidents
(person)
Death toll
in big
accidents
(person)
68
1942
2500
5
118
450254
98738
47
807
571
649
2
5
1042
Times
of big
accidents
Tab. 3 Proportion of occurring times and death toll of different kinds of big accidents (%)
Type
Road
transportation
Railway
transportation
Waterway
transportation
Fishing
Industrial
enterprises
Agricultural
equipment
Fire
accident
Times
77.7
5.8
0.4
0.5
12.5
1.1
2
Death
toll
35
-
4
6
49
-
4
1.3 Public Health Emergencies
The year 2005 witnessed 4122 public health emergencies (Tab.4), in which
contagious disease, food poisoning, occupational disease, and bad vaccinate response
happened 1631 times, affecting 82,230 persons, killed 702 persons, increased 31.0,
30.2 and 82.2 percent than previous year; animal epidemic 2491 times, direct subsidy
379.4 million RMB.
Tab. 4 Times of public health emergencies in China in 2005
Type
Huge
Bigger
Big
Ordinary
Total
Contagious disease
0
7
73
920
1000
Food poisoning
0
1
235
188
424
Occupational disease
0
5
42
19
66
Bad vaccinate
response
0
1
2
5
8
Animal epidemic
1
2
4
2484
2491
Others
0
7
57
69
133
Total
1
23
413
3685
4122
1.4 Social Security Emergencies
There were 4.678 million criminal cases, financial accidents, and mass protests
in 2005, killing 69,000 persons, causing 31.7 billion RMB of direct economic loss,
down 2.3, 12.0, and 28.8 percent respectively compared to the previous year. Among
them, the increasing trend of mass protests was under control, criminal cases were
less, and financial accidents decreased much.
In a word, the situation of public security in China is generally good and welling.
The numbers of industrial accidents and public security emergencies are decreasing,
while natural disasters and public health emergencies are increasing, but the situation
in some areas and fields are still not very optimistic. In 2005, there were 5.4 million
unexpected public accidents in China, 210,000 less than the previous year; leading to
the death of nearly 200,000 citizens, 10,000 less than the previous year; and causing
325.3 billion RMB of direct economic losses, much less than the previous year.
6
Others
2
Integrated Disaster Risk Management of
China
2
2.1 Management System
In order to enhance emergency management and implement the governments’
function entirely, the Emergency Management Office of State Council at the national
level establishment is established in the April of 2006. It works as an operation hinge,
which takes charge of the daily work of the national emergency management,
responds to the public security events, collects the real-time information and
harmonizes the related departments. Since the establishment in 2006, the Emergency
Management Office of State Council has carried out some effective work to enhance
the disaster emergency management: helped actualize and implement the Master State
Plan for Rapid Response to Public Emergencies of China; held the emergency
management working meeting of State Council and the management working meeting
of enterprise emergency work, to deploy and unify the emergency management, and
emphasizes the governments of all levels to enhance emergency ability construction
and get prepared for the prevention and dealing for the public security emergencies;
started the Key Technologies R & D Program for the emergency platform construction
to provide science and technology supporting for emergency management and
increase the emergency treatment efficiency.
So far, the Chinese disaster risk (public security) management system has
established, namely “one office and four committees”: the establishment of the
Emergency Management Office of State Council at the national level and the
corresponding organizations with regard to the four public security incidents—the
National Committee for Disaster Reduction to manage natural disasters, the National
Committee for Work Safety to manage industry accidents, the National Committee for
Patriotic Health to manage public health and the National Committee for integrated
management to manage public security. The four committees are made up of a vice
president or a committeeman of the State Council of China as committee director, a
minister or vice minister from the main related ministries as administrative vice
director or vice director, and the vice ministers from the corresponding ministries as
committee members. At the local levels, there are corresponding disaster risk (public
security) management organizations with accordance to the national level. The local
emergency management centre and the committees for the four public security
incidents management have been gradually established. The disaster risk management
organization system of China can be concluded as the follows (Fig. 2).
7
Fig. 2 Disaster risk management organization system of China
Besides, in order to enhance the disaster risk management work, in these related
ministries and commissions, the corresponding management centers have been
established, such as the Chinese Center for disease control and prevention (Ministry
of Health), the National Disaster Reduction Center of China ( Ministry of Civil
Affairs), the Chinese Supervision Center for Work Safety?State Administration of
Work Safety), etc.
In conclusion, China has started disaster risk (public security) management work
on the basis of traditional disaster management and reduction, and has formed the
primary disaster risk management framework of related professional fields. Besides, it
is supposed to legislate emergency laws to enhance the legal system construction of
disaster risk emergency management; The China Association for Disaster Prevention
also established the first professional organization for risk research, which has been
named as the Risk Analysis Specialty Committee; many Chinese universities and
research institutes have been doing research on natural disasters, engineering hazards,
economic risk, crisis management and disaster risk management, and so on. However,
compared with the international situation, disaster risk management in China is facing
an austere and significant challenge but also a very good opportunity.
2.2 Management Mechanism
On the basis of the existing disaster risk management resources, in the January of
2006, the state council of China promulgated the Master State Plan for Rapid
Response to Public Emergencies, with the aim to improve the government’s public
security dealing and responding ability, minimize the loss of the public security events
and promote the harmony and sustainable development of the whole society. The
Master State Plan is the general program for the national emergency plan system and
is the criterion file for the prevention and treatment of the public security events,
which clarifies the classification and framework of the public security events,
8
prescribes the organization system, operation mechanism of the severe emergency
dealing. The Master State Plan emphasizes to establish an emergency mechanism of
classified management, different-level responsibility, bar and block combination but
mainly depending on the blocks. Here, the bars mean the professional technology
departments, while the blocks mean the local governments of all levels. So it can be
regarded that the Chinese disaster risk management system depends mainly on the
central management, with the mutual cooperation between the central government and
the local governments. The related departments of the central government and the
local governments take their corresponding pre-disaster, in-disaster and post-disaster
responsibilities, and there’s no single government department in charge of all the tasks
(including disaster preparedness, emergency and disaster recovery and reconstruction)
of a single public security factor.
The Chinese regional integrated disaster risk management mode persists in the
principle of “give priority to disaster prevention, and combine disaster prevention
with disaster resistance and relief”. Namely, before disaster occurrence, it’s important
to establish and consummate the monitoring and warning system, carry out
emergency planning, strengthen emergency material reserving ability, build
ecologically healthy environment, accelerated regional economy and reduce disaster
vulnerability; During disaster period, it’s emphasized to improve emergency response
ability, highlight the human-oriented actions, reduce the casualty and property loss
and protect natural resource and environment maximally; After disaster, it’s suggested
to strengthen the government and society relief ability of all levels, especially the
community self-rescue and self-relief ability, and based on the results of the rapid
disaster loss assessment, it’s urgent to recover lifeline and product line systems and
accelerate reconstruction efficiency and effect.
By now, the natural disaster risk governance in China are taken charge by
different ministries or bureaus in terms of different kinds of natural hazards, e.g.
China Earthquake Administration takes charge of risk governance of earthquake
disaster, China Meteorological Administration takes charge of risk governance of
meteorological disasters, Ministry of Water Resources takes charge of risk governance
of floods and droughts, Ministry of Land and Resources takes charge of risk
governance of land slide and debris flow, State Ocean Administration takes charge of
risk governance of ocean disaster, and so on. To enhance risk governance of some
large-scale disaster, the State Council has set up several leading groups for natural
disaster governance, such as State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters
and State Earthquake Relief Headquarters. Correspondingly, each regional and local
government set up relevant departments. There are corresponding organizations in the
local governments of all the levels in China. In a word, China adopts the natural
disaster risk governance system of combined vertical inter-government and
inter-regional management mode where vertical sector management is prior to
integrated regional management.
9
2.2.1
Monitoring and Warning
During the disaster preparedness period, the mitigation and prevention work is
taken charge by the professional technical departments, namely the bars.
In the recent years, the Chinese government has increased the investment on
natural disaster monitoring and warning system construction, and has established the
natural disaster monitoring, warning and forecasting system primarily, including the
meteorological disasters monitoring and forecast, the earthquake monitoring and
forecast, the hydrological monitoring forest fire prevention, the forest and crop pests
monitoring and forecasting, the marine environment monitoring, the geological
disasters monitoring and early warning. This natural disaster monitoring, warning and
forecasting system can monitor the disaster dynamic development, and provide the
information for the disaster emergency decision-making. Furthermore, China plans to
launch two small optical satellites and one small SAR satellite in 2007, which is
called the "2+1” Project, and also another 4 optical satellites and 4 SAR satellites
before 2010 for the environmental and disaster monitoring and forecast. The ever
improving monitoring and early warning systems virtually covering natural disasters
of all kinds ensures timely response to disasters with effective rescue and relief
efforts.
Meanwhile, since the SARS event broke out in 2003, the Chinese Center for
Disaster Control and Development under the leadership of the Ministry of Health
began to pay more attention to public health events, and established a series of files on
public health risk management correspondingly, which made Chinese public health
risk management became regular and developed to an international way. The national
epidemic monitoring network of all levels and disease prevention and cure system has
been well formed and improved.
2.2.2
Emergency Response
During the disaster period, the emergency management offices and the disaster
reduction committees of all levels are in charge of the emergency response, together
with the Civil Affairs departments, the Public Security departments, the arms, etc.
Namely the bars and the blocks are combined together closely and rapidly to deal with
the emergencies as soon as there are emergency event. At present, a disaster
emergency response system is up and running to guarantee that rescue taskforces,
relief supplies, funds and information are on the ground and in place to address the
immediate and real needs of the affected.
According to disaster emergency management, the Chinese government has
strengthened the emergency plan system construction. In the Master State Plan for
Rapid Response to Public Emergencies, the public security events are divided into
four kinds (natural disasters, industry accidents, public health and social security)
according to their occurring process, characteristics and mechanism, and four grades
(huge, bigger, big and ordinary grade) according to their severity degree, degree to be
10
controlled and affected range. And it’s prescribed that the huge and bigger grade
emergencies must be reported to the State Council in 4 hours after the occurrence, and
the local governments or related departments have to start the related emergency plan
timely and effectively in the responsibility and power range to control the further
development. Besides, there have been several special plans and department plans for
Rapid Response to Public Emergencies; and the plans for Rapid Response to Public
Emergencies of national and local governments have also been compiled and
accomplished, which makes the disaster risk management and disaster reduction more
regular and systematic. Up to March 15th 2006, China has constituted 24,293
emergency response plans for unexpected public accidents, in which 1 national, 25
special, and 80 sectional, 971 from the sectors in the State Council (not including 80
sectional ones), 158 from central enterprises, 23058 regional ones. By now, the
national emergency plan system has formed initiatively, and the emergency
management system is under rapid construction.
As for the natural disaster emergency, as prescribing in the “State Emergency
Response Planning for Natural Disasters”, according to the disaster loss degree, the
Ministry of Civil Affairs of China adopts a four-grade response system (Fig. 3). In
other words, different emergencies influence degree is treated by the governments of
different levels. The more severe the situation is, the higher level of the government
will response and do decision-making
Fig. 3 Emergency response degrading for natural disasters in China
The further emergency management work emphasis will focus on the emergency
management platform, including the integrated natural disaster information platform,
the emergency network communication platform, the emergency decision-making
supporting platform and emergency commanding platform. It’s important to share
information and cooperate comprehensively to react and respond timely and
effectively. Meanwhile it’s also essential to enhance the related research like the
disaster loss assessment, disaster process simulation, and the ability construction
including disaster rescue equipments, emergency commanding, etc.
11
2.2.3
Relief?Recovery and Reconstruction
During the post-disaster period, the disaster relief and recovery work is charged
by the local disaster reduction committees, which works as a coordinator for the main
departments to organize the people in disaster area to recover to the normal life state,
which includes the Civil Affairs departments, the Health departments, the
Development and Deform Commission, the Finance departments, the
Communications departments, the Construction departments, the Railway
departments, etc. Namely, the blocks are the main responsibility body. Among these
different departments, the Civil Affairs department takes the main responsibility for
the disaster victims’ life relief, and the insurance companies carry out the
compensation for the disaster victims to help them to recover as soon as possible.
With regard to the disaster relief work, the Ministry of civil affairs of China has
set up the central system of material reserve for disaster relief since 1998. At present,
the central stations of material reserve has been build in ten cities, which include
Shenyang city, Ha’erbin city, Tianjin city , Zhengzhou city, Hefei city, Wuhan city,
Changsha city, Nanning city, Chengdu city and Xi’an city. Some regions of high
disaster frequencies, high vulnerability has also built the local storages of material
reserve for disaster relief. Thus, the network of material reserve network for disaster
relief which relies on the disaster relief storages has been established. At present, the
central reserve bases store 135000 tents, and the local reserve bases store 236000 tents.
If the severe disaster happens, the first tents for disaster relief would be sent out to the
people in the 24 hours.
At the same time, the Chinese government encourages the public social donation
activities from the whole society and the NGOs to be an important force in the
post-disaster period, including the endowment activity for the severe disaster, the
mutual support activity between the eastern area and ten provinces in the west, and
the disaster relief activity of the social organization. There are nearly 30 thousand
urban donation receiving stations in China, carrying out regular social donation
activities perennially, especially in the period when some natural disasters occurs.
This social mobilization mechanism provides a solid material supporting for disaster
management, and help the people in the less-developed area to recover rapidly after
disasters.
2.3 Management Legalization
China has instituted, promulgated and enforced 30-odd laws and regulations as it
moves forward to phase in a legal framework for disaster reduction. But the laws and
regulations are all about single aspects of the disaster risk management, such as “Law
of the People’s Republic of China on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earthquake
Disasters”, “Flood Control Law of the People's Republic of China”, “Law of the
People's Republic of China on Safety in Mines” and so on, the systematic and
comprehensive series of laws and regulations about disaster reduction have not been
12
constituted, especially in disaster relief, disaster insurance, post-disaster subsidy for
reconstruction, tax declining for the victims, and so on. Moreover, existing laws and
regulations are generally aimed at singe disaster types. So it’s urgent to legislate a law
in the integrated disaster risk management to carry out integrated disaster prevention
and reduction, and there isn’t explicit legal status for any integrated and coordinated
sectors.
3 Understanding of Integrated Disaster Risk Management
Mode
3.1 Integrated disaster risk administration mode
Considering the complexity of disaster
system and its chains, and the advantages of
different modes of regional disaster risk
P
governance from several countries, here we
put forward a mode of Integrated Disaster
Risk Administration Mode (IDRAM). The
Io
relationship among vertical, horizontal, and
institutional harmonization in the IDRAM
Lo
La
for integrated regional disaster reduction is
expressed in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. This
Fig. 4 Sketch map of integrated disaster
three-dimensional mode put horizontal
risk administration mode
harmonization, vertical harmonization, and
institutional harmonization together. Vertical
harmonization (Lo) means harmonization among central, and all levels of regional
governments, where local governments are more important in the field of disaster
reduction management; Horizontal harmonization (La) means harmonization among
different government departments and other disaster reduction organizations;
Institutional harmonization (P) means harmonization among all kinds of policies
related to disaster reduction. And the optimization of system structure in searching for
bettering system functioning means to find best usage of disaster reduction resources
(Io) from vertical and horizontal harmonization by coordination of policies (P) related
to disaster reduction.
This management mode of IDRAM is precious for constructing harmonious
society and well-off society to enhance natural disaster risk governance in China, and
it is meaningful to build a safe world. Meanwhile, it would promote science and
technology of public security and personnel training of risk management.
13
in
g
ito
r
m
on
ng
ec
as
t
fo
r
wa
rn
i
n
to
co
l
as
se
ss
m
en
t
pr
o
ch
m
at
io
re
se
ar
in
fro
ca
tio
n
ed
u
eg
ion
s
te
r
an
di
nte
gr
a
sy
ste
m
for
m
Re
R
in eg
te io
gr na
at l
cip
io
n
le/
sc
al e
pr
in
Fig. 5 Integrated disaster risk administration mode
As the diversity of public security elements, integrated disaster risk
administration management should first achieve the vertical harmonization, namely
harmonious between central, and all levels of regional governments, where local
governments are more important in the field of disaster reduction management. All
levels of principals should work together, and the administrative regions of different
levels should be well harmonized. Therefore, the maximum efficiency and effect of
disaster reduction resources use can be achieved, which can be called “vertical to the
end with no blank”. Meanwhile, the horizontal harmonization among different
government departments and other disaster reduction organizations is also very
important. In other words, it’s significant to fully promote the active role of
government at all levels and related institutions of disaster risk management, and
improve the intercommunication and cooperation, which can be called “horizontal to
the margin and no dead angle”. The Chinese governments have established some
coordinating departments in same level of government departments, such as the
National Disaster Reduction Committee, Anti-flood and anti-drought Guide group of
the State Council. At last, in order to realize vertical and horizontal harmonization,
co-construction and share disaster risk management information, improve efficiency
of resources use and information communication, institutional harmonization is an
14
indispensable precondition. Legislation of related laws on disaster risk management,
which coordinate organizational and individual behaviors in vertical and horizontal
harmonization, could fully exploit governmental and social resources for disaster
reduction. This means achieve integrated administrative management of public
security through the harmonization of related policies, for example, the coordination
between regional development planning and disaster reduction planning, between
urban planning and its hydrological network protection, between land development
planning and ecological construction, between flood-drought disaster and soil water
conservation.
3.2 Integrated disaster risk governance mode
Regional integrated disaster process determines the mode of regional disaster
risk governance. Therefore, it’s necessary to confirm the main factors relating to
integrated disaster risk governance, according to the time, space, attribute
organization, management and other aspects. From the spacial perspective, it’s
supposed to compartmentalize the high, middle and low risk area in the entire disaster
region; from the temporal perspective, it’s supposed to compartmentalize the stage
before, during and after disaster; from the attribute perspective, it’s supposed to
confirm the relationship between the disaster region, disaster victims and disaster
effect; from the institutional perspective, it’s supposed to confirm the functions of the
governments, enterprises and communities; from the management perspective, it’s
supposed to clarify the duty of the centre, departmental and local governments. The
integrated disaster risk governance mode is to integrate these factors related to the
disaster risk governance, form the strongest integration force, and improve the
efficiency and effects of the disaster reduction resources consequently.
3.2.1
Factors related to integrated disaster risk governance
(1) Disaster risk zoning
According the historical disaster data, by estimating the exceeding probability,
it’s easy to confirm the various disaster risk levels, namely the realization of disaster
risk zoning. In China, flood risk is usually zoned by 1/100a, 1/50a and 1/20a, etc. The
division of the high risk, middle risk and low risk areas is not only needed to consider
the disaster intensity in the region, but also needed to consider the disaster diversity
and frequency. Therefore, the high risk area is where various disasters of great
intensity frequently occur and the disaster status is also of the most severity. By
compartmentalize the risk region, it provides clue and suggestion for regional
development planning, especially for directly supporting the regional land use
planning and ensuring that the regional development can avoid the high risk region.
15
(2) Stages of disaster reduction process
Disaster process commonly contains the three stages before disaster, during
disaster and after disaster. The task of pre-disaster reduction mainly includes disaster
supervision, warning and some other preparedness and plans for disaster. The task of
in-disaster reduction mainly focuses on emergency transfer, allocation and other
emergency task. And the task of post-disaster reduction mainly includes disaster
recovery and reconstruction.
(3) The definition of disaster region, victims and effect
Each disaster brings direct and indirect influence and losses. As the direct
disaster influence, the disaster region commonly refers to the hazard influencing
region. While as the indirect influence of the disaster, the disaster region is likely to
expand obviously with the evolvement and development of the disaster chains and
disaster process. Taking a watershed for example, the rainstorm in the upper region
necessarily affect the lower region, hence the disaster region expands from the upper
region to the entire watershed. Besides, the landslides and the mud and stone flows
caused by flood, destroy the traffic main lines. In this way, the region influenced by
the halt of the traffic expands, and accordingly the disaster region expands along the
traffic main lines. In July of 2006, the flood in Hunan province broke off the
Jingguang railway and Jingzhu freeway, which are the arteries of the south-north
traffic of China. As a result, the traffic along these main lines cannot perform
normally, and the disaster regional expand from Hunan to Guangdong, Hubei and
some other regions. Disaster victim commonly merely include the death, the wound
and the people affected by the disaster, namely three types in all. In the situation of
disaster, lots of basic facilities in the disaster region are affected, so precise
calculation of different disaster victims has great importance in taking transfer and
allocation measures. It also brings influence to making reconstruction plans in the
disaster region. Besides the disaster victims, the disaster effect includes the property
loss of the victims directly caused by disaster, the resources and environment damage,
as well as the indirectly economic loss and social influence (especially the impacts on
the normal economic and social process). The precise calculation of disaster effect is
still a quite difficult technical work.
(4) The confirmation of the disaster reduction organizations
Once a disaster happens, the disaster relevant organizations often include the
governments and its related departments, the enterprises and its affiliated sections, as
well as the disaster region communities ( mainly includes community projects, public
guarantee, and households, etc ). After disaster, the government as disaster victim not
only has to face and respond to the disaster, and also should mobilize various
resources to take part in the disaster reduction of the entire disaster region; the
enterprises which is also the victim of the disaster, should face and respond to the
disaster, and also play an important role in the material and equipment guaranteeing
for disaster as constitute of the production line or life line in the disaster region; the
16
communities, the most basic units of disaster reduction, it’s essential not only to
organize self-aid and mutual-aid when the disaster happens, but also plays a
determinative role in disaster reduction education and safety culture construction.
(5) The confirmation of disaster management levels
Different countries and regions have different governmental management modes.
Take China as an example, it is usually divided into the center, departmental and local
three systems. “Center” stands for the center of the Communist Party of China, the
State Council, the Central Military Commission?the National People’s Congress and
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference; “departmental” stands for
functional departments and affairs-handling departments which are affiliated to the
center of the Communist Party of China, the State Council and the Central Military
Commission; “local” can generally divided to four levels: provincial level
( municipality and autonomous regions), prefecture level (city at prefecture level and
region at prefecture level), county level (city at county level, region at county level
and street office at county level), town level (town at the town level and street
commission at the township level ). In the progress of implementing integrated
disaster risk management, it’s significant to clarify the division of duty and
responsibility of the centre, departmental and the local governments in the
implementation of the public security goal-“vertical to the end with no blank, and
horizontal to the margin with no dead angle”.
3.2.2
Integrated disaster risk governance mode
According to the integrated disaster process and the aforementioned main factors
of integrated disaster risk governance, Fig. 6 demonstrates the integrated disaster risk
governance mode. From the disaster management perspective, this mode clarifies the
responsibility among the central, departmental and local governments and promotes
an integrated disaster administration management system, namely cooperating the
governments of all levels to realize the “vertical to the end and horizontal to the
margin” integration; from the disaster process perspective, it clarifies the overall
planning before, during and after disaster to realize the integration of disaster
preparedness, emergency, recovery and reconstruction; from perspective of the
relevant disaster departments, it emphasizes the harmonization of the governments,
enterprises and communities to realize the integration of disaster capacity construction,
insurance and relief. The three types of integration mentioned above is the core
content of this integrated disaster risk governance.
In other words, this mode emphasizes that, under the guidance of scientific
disaster reduction, and in terms of the dynamic and non-dynamic actions in disaster
forming process, it’s essential to construct the system, mechanism and legislation for
integrated risk governance. The objective is to unite the governments, enterprises and
communities as an organic entity during the whole disaster reduction process
(including the pre-disaster preparedness, in-disaster emergency and post-disaster
recovery and reconstruction) and realize the disaster risk management goal.
17
Disaster (Public
Security) Types
Industry
Accident
Natural Disaster
Public Health
Social Scurity
Give Priority to Disaster Prevention and
Combine It with Disaster Resistance and Relief
Integrated Disaster
Risk Governace
Pre-disaster
In-disaster
Post-disaster
Disaster
Preparedness
Disaster Emergency
Disaster Recovery/
Reconstruction
Disaster Effect
Disaster Victims
Disaster Area
Government
Enterprise
Community
Capacity Construction
Insurance
Institutional
Harmonization
Vertical
Harmonization
Horizontal
Harmonization
Central
Government
Department
Region
Middle Risk Area
Low Risk Area
High Risk Area
Disaster Process
Dynamic Process
Pre-disaster
Scientific Foundation
for Disaster Reduction
Relief
Non-dynamic Process
In-disaster
Post-disaster
Vulnerability
Resilience
Adaptability
Risk
Integration
Regionality
Fig. 6 Integrated Disaster Risk Governance Mode
4 Integrated Disaster Risk Management Strategies of
China
4.1 To establish the “National Disaster Reduction Planning”
Disaster reduction has been high on the agenda for the central government,
which views it as vital to sustainable economic and social development, coordinated
development and harmony between economy, natural resources and ecology. The
18
central government has created the State Disaster Reduction Commission?SDRC? to
harness the synergy of relevant efforts and initiatives. 30-plus relevant laws and
regulations have been promulgated and put into force, integrating disaster reduction
into national legal framework. In 1998, the Disaster Reduction Planning of the
People’s Republic of China (1998-2010) was designed to identify guidelines, targets,
commitments and measures for disaster reduction efforts. With the guidance of the
Disaster Reduction Planning, all the local governments, the departments, and the
industries have enhanced the disaster reduction work effectively, and the integrated
disaster reduction ability is improved.
In the 11-fifth development of China, according to the new period development
needs and based on the Disaster Reduction Planning of the People’s Republic of
China (1998-2010), it’s necessary to establish more detailed National Integrated
Disaster Reduction Planning in the 11-fifth Period, to define the main tasks of the
national integrated disaster reduction and the key disaster reduction programs to be
implemented in this period. As the guidance for the disaster reduction work, this
new-period disaster reduction planning is now under the stage of experts’ auditing and
last-edition revision, which means that it’s going to be promulgated and implemented
all over the country immediately.
4.2 To accelerate the construction of disaster reduction ability
The Chinese government has paid much attention to the disaster reduction ability
construction. This can be proved from the disaster risk management research
programs. The National Natural Science Foundation and of China has sponsored and
carried out a large number of risk management research projects, such as “regional
disciplines of Chinese natural disaster” and so on. The Ministry of Science and
Technology also supports risk management research in the fields of major natural
disaster, engineering accidents, public health, and public security, through the Key
Technologies R&D Program every five-year period. Since the SARS event broke out in
2003, Chinese government greatly increases the investment and input in the public
security field, and a series of risk management research and technology development
became to carry out and develop quickly. However, the disaster reduction ability is
still needed to be accelerated, by learning from the developed and other developing
countries and through all the possible ways to utilize the disaster reduction resources
efficiently and effectively.
4.3 To improve the emergency response program
The Master State Program for Emergency Response is the general program for
the national emergency response program and is the criterion file for the prevention
and treatment of the public security events, which clarifies the classification and
framework of the public security events, prescribes the organization system, operation
19
mechanism of the severe emergency dealing. Although the Master State Program is of
great importance and guidance, it only pays much attention to the in-disaster
integrated response, but overlooks the integrated optimization among the in-disaster
emergency management, the pre-disaster mitigation, and the post-disaster recovery
and reconstruction. So it’s necessary to improve the rapid emergency response plans,
harmonize all the aspects of integrated disaster reduction, and ensure the emergency
response program is political, scientific and feasible.
4.4 To
strengthen
the
discipline
and
human
resource
construction of disaster reduction
The Chinese organizations dealing with disaster risk management research
mainly include the university research institutes, centres and laboratories, the academe
research organizations and the government departments or research organizations. The
research staff is made up of teachers and R&D members with a total amount of about
10 thousand. However, compared with the international situation, the Chinese disaster
risk management still needs to enhance the discipline and human resource
construction of disaster reduction. It's imperative to establish and develop the disaster
reduction science and technology in China. The disaster reduction science and
technology mainly contain the following parts: disaster science, to reveal the disaster
system structure and functioning, and the disaster-forming dynamic and non-dynamic
mechanism; emergency technology, to develop the technologies of disaster
preparedness, emergency, recovery and reconstruction; risk management, which
includes risk identification, perception, assessment, modelling and simulation,
communication and adaptation, the risk governance institution, mechanism and laws,
the risk transfer strategies and approaches, etc.
4.5 To improve the action of disaster rescue and disaster relief
A disaster rescue and relief mechanism has been put in place to regulate the
placement of the victimized, rescue and relief, recovery and reconstruction efforts.
The mechanism features rational input, comprehensive coverage and regulated
allocation and helps straighten out the management of emergency response, recovery
and reconstruction and the follow-up relief efforts to help the affected community to
tide over tough unproductive times. A system is in place to put the livelihood
arrangement of the affected on record, ensure that the relief efforts to help rebuild
houses are available to each village and household. The subsistence for the affected
has been well secured as the introduction of Relief Card Program has made relief
supplies accessible and available to the entire disaster-stricken community.
Despite all these efforts, the emergency rescue ability of China is limited.
Inadequate professional skill training and emergency rescue staff, and decentralized
rescue force are the main reasons for the weak professional rescue ability. Because of
20
the outdated equipment and information construction, the emergency response speed
is slow, and hard to implement efficient measures in time. Take work safety as an
example, currently, there are only 150 thousand rescue staff but are divided into more
than ten departments. So it’s urgent to promote the disaster rescue ability, increase the
practical emergency efficiency and effectiveness and guarantee the people’s life and
property security. Meanwhile, though the material reserving network for disaster relief
is established, the disaster relief degree is still limited for the developing country of
such a great population, which is not adequate for the victims to continue their normal
life. So it’s needed to continue to strengthen the disaster relief work, increase the
disaster relief degree and effectiveness.
4.6 To emphasize the financial mechanism of large-scale
disaster risk-transfer
The Chinese government is more and more taking insurance as an important
commercial way for disaster risk transfer. In 2006, the total insurance premium of
China is about 564.14 billion RMB Yuan, increasing 14.4% compared with the same
period last year. Property insurance accounts for 150.94 billion, increasing 22.6%; life
insurance accounts for 359.26 billion, increasing 10.7%; health insurance accounts for
53.94 billion, increasing 19%. The insurance depth is 2.8%, and the insurance density
is 431.3 RMB Yuan. But there is still a huge gap between insurance in China and the
World. China’s GDP ranks 4th in the world, while the premium ranks 11th. The global
average of premium proportion to GDP is 8%, while in China the number is 2.8%.
The global average premium per person is 512 USD, while in China the number is
55.3 USD. The ratio of the insurance capital to the whole finance industrial capital in
China is 1:33, while that of the developed countries is 1:5.
In China, the natural disaster insurance is just in the initiating stage. So far the
natural disaster insurance just played as an affiliation to property insurance for the
enterprises and rural families. The catastrophic and agricultural insurance is still under
developing. Some provinces are making experiments on agricultural natural disaster
insurance, including professional agricultural insurance company, agricultural
insurance company of foreign capital, the combination co-insurance between the
commercial insurance companies and the local governments, etc, but the testing range
is very limited.
In 2006, the State Council of China proclaimed “Some Opinions of the State
Council on the Reform and Development of the Insurance Industry”, which
emphasizes that insurance departments must sum all the experience up in the
insurance testing area, probing agricultural insurance developing mode suitable for
China, and extend the coverage of agricultural insurance. Construct an agricultural
insurance system with multi-form and multi-support. The document also said that the
old agricultural disaster mitigation mode should change to a new mechanism of
agricultural insurance combined with financial support from government. Meanwhile,
complete a multi-level agricultural catastrophic risk transition mechanism, exploring
21
an agricultural reinsurance system with governmental financial support. Only in this
way can agricultural insurance be an important part in stabilizing the basic living
standard of farmers, improving the disaster resilience and serve well for rural society.
Beside the agriculture insurance as the key devoting direction of the Chinese
insurance industry, the catastrophe insurance is also under the research stage. With
regard to the catastrophes, according to statistical data, catastrophes happened in
China in 20 century account for 30% of global total catastrophes happened during the
period. The losses form natural disasters in China are on the rise, average annual
losses from natural disaster these years are 1.4 times of counterpart in the 1980’s.
Especially, damages caused by catastrophes increased faster. From 1950, there were
26 catastrophes happened in China, among which severe drought account for 10,
flood account for 5, earthquake 7 and storms 4. Beside the great losses caused by
catastrophes, great influence pressed on public’s mind, for instance the Tangshan
Earthquake in 1976 and floods in 1998. Based on researches it’s pointed out that
China will experience a severe natural disaster period in the early half century, and
this mean that China’s and global sustainable development of economy will face to a
big challenge. It’s a good chance for global insurance industry and other financial
industry to set up catastrophe insurance in China.
At present, China’s insurance industry experiences its primary development,
mature and self-contained catastrophe insurance system has not established yet. And
insurance companies in China are often on a small scale, lack in necessary national
financial policies support. These situations limited domestic insurance industry’s
ability of catastrophe insurance, hindering the development of catastrophe insurance
in China. Insurance companies’ management and service can’t meet the need of
catastrophe insurance management. As technology demand and cost in catastrophe
domain is high, insurance companies have difficulty to get an exact estimate about
loss form catastrophes such as earthquakes, storms floods, causing these insurance
agents unable to develop abundant types of catastrophe insurance product. Instead,
conservative attitude are often adopted in catastrophe insurance field.
Thus, it’s urgent to establish of catastrophe insurance system with Chinese
characteristics. According to distribution, occurrence situation, market requirement on
insurance, actual and macro-economic development of regions in China, taking
advantages of foreign successful model experience, with state financial support, in a
move to encourage domestic insurers to play a greater role in providing insurance for
potential disasters, a catastrophe insurance system with Chinese characteristics is
going to be established.
22
References
[1] The Emergency Management Office of the State Council of China, 2006.
National emergency management working meeting document. [In Chinese]
[2] The State Council of China, 2006. The Master State Plan for Rapid Response to
Public Emergencies. [In Chinese]
[3] The State Council of China, 2005. The State Emergency Response Planning for
Natural Disasters. [In Chinese]
[4] Shi Peijun, 1991. On the theory of disaster research and its practice [J]. Journal of
Nanjing University, 11, 37-42. [In Chinese]
[5] Shi Peijun, 1996. Theory and practice of disaster study[J]. Journal of Natural
Disasters 5(4), 6-17. [In Chinese]
[6] Shi Peijun, 2002. Theory on disaster theory and disaster dynamics[J]. Journal of
Natural Disasters 11(3), 1-9. [In Chinese]
[7] SHI Peijun, 2005. Theory and Practice on Disaster System Research in a Fourth
Time[J]. Journal of Natural Disaster, 14(6): 1~8. [In Chinese]
[8] Okada Norio. Conference Road Map, 3rd International Symposium on
INTEGRATED DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT (IDRM-2003)[M]. Kyoto
International Conference Hall. Kyoto, JAPAN, 3-5 July, 2003.
[9] Xi Youmin, Tang Yicheng, Guo Shiyi, 2004. Harmonious theory[J], Xi'an
Jiaotong university press, Xi'an. [In Chinese]
[10] China Insurance Regulatory Commission, 2007. The national Insurance Working
Meeting document [In Chinese].
[11] The State Council of China, 2006. Some Opinions of the State Council on the
Reform and Development of the Insurance Industry. [In Chinese]
[12] Wu Dingfu eds., 2006. China Risk Governance Report[M]. The Chinese Finance
and Economy Press. [In Chinese]
23
doc_826737775.pdf
This paper firstly introduces the disaster (public security) status quo and situation of China briefly, and then gives a detailed explanation of the integrated disaster risk management system. China is one of the most natural disaster affected countries in the world.
Session III: Financial Management: Role of Insurance Industry, Financial
Markets, and Governments
Part B: Developing Country Perspective
Integrated Disaster Risk Management
of China
Peijun Shi1,2,3, Jing Liu1,2, Qinghai Yao4, Di Tang4, Xi Yang1,2
(1.Institute of Disaster and Public Security, College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing
Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
2. Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Natural Disaster, MOE, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing 100875, China;
3. Acadamy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Civil Affairs &
Ministry of Education, the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100875, China;
4. Insurance Intermediaries Regulatory Department, China Insurance Regulatory Commission,
Beijing 100000, China.)
* Supported by Funds for Talented Professionals of
National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No.40425008)
National Key Technologies R&D Program
(No. 2006BAD20B03)
Hyderabad, India
February 26th -27th 2007
1
Integrated Disaster Risk Management of China
Peijun Shi1,2,3, Jing Liu1,2, Qinghai Yao4, Di Tang4, Xi Yang1,2
(1.Institute of Disaster and Public Security, College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing
Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
2. Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Natural Disaster, MOE, Beijing Normal
University, Beijing 100875, China;
3. Acadamy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Civil Affairs &
Ministry of Education, the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100875, China;
4. Insurance Intermediaries Regulatory Department, China Insurance Regulatory Commission,
Beijing 100000, China.)
Abstract: This paper firstly introduces the disaster (public security) status quo and situation of
China briefly, and then gives a detailed explanation of the integrated disaster risk management
system. China is one of the most natural disaster affected countries in the world. The disaster risk
reduction work in China includes the pre-disaster decentralized management with separate fields
and departments, the in-disaster integrated emergency management, and the post-disaster
different-level cooperation between the central government and the local governments. So it can
be regarded that the Chinese disaster risk management system depends mainly on the central
management, with the mutual cooperation between the central government and the local
governments. The integrated disaster risk management of China emphasizes the management
mechanism of “combine the bars (the professional technology departments) and the blocks (the
local governments), and mainly depend on the blocks”; the final goal of the integrated disaster
reduction is to “realize the horizontal harmonization to the margin without dead angle and the
vertical harmonization to the end without blank”; the Chinese disaster risk management strategy
persists in the principle of “give priority to disaster prevention, and combine disaster prevention
with disaster resistance and relief”. The natural disaster risk management is mainly taken charge
by the civil affair departments of China and the insurance regulatory departments. As the key
guaranteeing strategies for national sustainable development, the agriculture insurance and the
large-scale catastrophe insurance are now under the stage of research and experiment. Some
provinces of China have carried out the agriculture natural disaster insurance.
Key words: Natural disaster; disaster risk management; emergency and disaster reduction; China
China is one of the most natural disaster affected countries in the world. The
Chinese government has been attaching much importance to disaster reduction work
since 1949, and much structural and non-structural construction has been
accomplished to improve the natural disaster resistant ability of China, mainly in the
fields of flood and drought mitigation, earthquake mitigation, tide protection, etc,
which protects the people’s life and property and promote the socio-economic
development.
However, China is at the transitional stage of economy and society. The economy
2
is developing at a high speed, while the society productivity development level is
unbalanced. The foundation of the public security guaranteeing system is poor, and
the heavy accidents and events occur constantly. It’s estimated that every year, the
economic loss caused by disasters (public security problems) amounts to hundreds of
billion RMB, 3%-6% of China’s total GDP. So the pubic security events have brought
about great influence on the people’s daily life and social sustainable development.
Facing the serious public security events happening constantly these years, such as the
heavy tropical storm, SARS, fowl influenza, Benzene pollution in Songhua River, etc,
in order to minimize the socio-economic loss and bad influence of the public security
events, the Chinese government has enhanced the disaster risk (public security)
management from all government levels, both the central and the local governments.
The Emergency Management Office of State Council at the national level
establishment is established and the public emergency planning has been promulgated
and implemented. Also according to some main public security factors, a series of
laws, regulations and decisions have been carried out. At present, the Chinese
integrated disaster risk management is still at the initial development stage, and has
some problems needed to improving. So it’s supposed to promote and consummate
the disaster risk management on the base of the existing work, and establish a
scientific and efficient integrated disaster risk management system. Meanwhile, it’s
significant to assimilate the worldwide advanced disaster risk management experience
and technology, and strengthen the international cooperation in this field, with the
purpose of making the whole world safer.
1
Issues of Disasters (Public Security) in
China
According to the Master State Plan for Rapid Response to Public Emergencies of
China, the public security events are divided into four kinds, namely natural disasters,
industry accidents, public health emergencies and social security emergencies.
1.1 Natural Disasters
With the special geographic position of facing the pacific in the east, China has
the monsoon-controlled climate and the southeast coast areas are strongly influenced
by typhoon; China lies in the world major seismic belt and has a frequent earthquake
occurring; the terrain condition is complicated in China, and the area proportion of the
hill region and the plateau region in the whole country reaches 69%, with severe soil
and water lost, wind erosion and desertification. This geographic environment
determines that natural disaster of China has the following characteristics: multiple
natural hazards, high frequency of hazard occurring, significant regional
differentiation and seasonal characteristic and severe disaster losses.
3
China is prone to nearly all natural hazards of varying magnitude except
volcanoes. There are five main natural disasters threatening China: flood, drought,
earthquake, typhoon and landslide/mudslide, and the losses caused by these five main
natural disasters come up to 80%-90% of the annual disaster-loss total. The frequency
of natural hazards is high, with large-scale drought of the average frequency over 7,
floods 5.8, typhoon 7, Low Temperature and Freeze 2.5, each year since 1949. With
the influence of monsoon climate, China has significant regional and seasonal
characteristics. The droughts mainly distribute in the Northwest Loess Plateau and the
North China Plateau in spring and autumn; the floods mainly distribute in the seven
large river basins, especially in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River and
Huaihe River in summer and autumn. The Losses caused by natural disasters is also
very severe. In the general year, the natural disaster affected agricultural area is about
one third of the nation total farmland area, of which one third is no-crop harvest area;
the disaster affected population is around 200 million, and the urgently transferred
person number is over 3 million; the Collapsed building number is around 3 million.
In 2006, the status of natural disasters in China is more serious than the
preceding 6 years (Tab. 1). The death toll and direct economic loss were the highest in
the recent 8 years since 1999, only urgently transferred people less than that of 2005,
and the number of collapsed buildings was less than that of 2003 and 2005, though the
proportion of the direct economic loss to the national GDP each year is declining with
fluctuation since 1989 (Fig. 1). Generally speaking, the casualty of natural disasters in
2006 is mainly caused by typhoon, flood, landslide and Debris Flow in the East China,
South China and southeast part of China.
Tab. 1 Disaster loss of China in 2001-2006
Year
Affected
person
(million
persons)
Death toll
(person)
urgently
transferred
people
(million
persons)
Direct
economic
loss
(billion
RMB)
Collapsed
building
(thousand
houses)
2001
372.559
2538
2.111
194.22
922
2002
427.98
2384
4.718
163.72
1895
2003
497.459
2259
7.073
188.42
3430
2004
339.206
2250
5.633
160.23
1550
2005
406.537
2567
15.703
204.21
2264
2006
3186
13.845
4
252.81
1933
The Proportion of Natual Disaster Loss to
the National GDP
20
05
20
03
20
01
19
99
19
97
19
95
19
93
19
91
19
89
6.00
5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
Fig. 1 The proportion of the direct economic loss to the national GDP each year
from 1989 to 2006
1.2 Industrial Accidents
Around 717,900 industrial accidents occurred in 2005, killing 127,100 persons,
down 10.7 and 7.1 percent from the year 2004, leading to 89 billion RMB direct
economic loss. But big accidents with more than 10 persons killed happened 136
times, killed 3084 persons, up 3.8 and 18.3 percent than previous year. Huge accidents
with more than 30 persons killed happened 17 times, killed .1197 persons, up 6.3 and
27.9 percent. In coal mine and transportation industries, big and huge accidents were
still not well controlled.
Tab. 2 Times and death toll of four major kinds of industrial accidents in China in 2005
Type
Total
times
Total
death toll
(person)
Coal mine and other
industrial enterprises’
accident
13142
15868
Fire accident
235941
Transportation
accident
Public establishment
and special
equipment accident
Times of
Huge
accidents
13
Death toll
in huge
accidents
(person)
Death toll
in big
accidents
(person)
68
1942
2500
5
118
450254
98738
47
807
571
649
2
5
1042
Times
of big
accidents
Tab. 3 Proportion of occurring times and death toll of different kinds of big accidents (%)
Type
Road
transportation
Railway
transportation
Waterway
transportation
Fishing
Industrial
enterprises
Agricultural
equipment
Fire
accident
Times
77.7
5.8
0.4
0.5
12.5
1.1
2
Death
toll
35
-
4
6
49
-
4
1.3 Public Health Emergencies
The year 2005 witnessed 4122 public health emergencies (Tab.4), in which
contagious disease, food poisoning, occupational disease, and bad vaccinate response
happened 1631 times, affecting 82,230 persons, killed 702 persons, increased 31.0,
30.2 and 82.2 percent than previous year; animal epidemic 2491 times, direct subsidy
379.4 million RMB.
Tab. 4 Times of public health emergencies in China in 2005
Type
Huge
Bigger
Big
Ordinary
Total
Contagious disease
0
7
73
920
1000
Food poisoning
0
1
235
188
424
Occupational disease
0
5
42
19
66
Bad vaccinate
response
0
1
2
5
8
Animal epidemic
1
2
4
2484
2491
Others
0
7
57
69
133
Total
1
23
413
3685
4122
1.4 Social Security Emergencies
There were 4.678 million criminal cases, financial accidents, and mass protests
in 2005, killing 69,000 persons, causing 31.7 billion RMB of direct economic loss,
down 2.3, 12.0, and 28.8 percent respectively compared to the previous year. Among
them, the increasing trend of mass protests was under control, criminal cases were
less, and financial accidents decreased much.
In a word, the situation of public security in China is generally good and welling.
The numbers of industrial accidents and public security emergencies are decreasing,
while natural disasters and public health emergencies are increasing, but the situation
in some areas and fields are still not very optimistic. In 2005, there were 5.4 million
unexpected public accidents in China, 210,000 less than the previous year; leading to
the death of nearly 200,000 citizens, 10,000 less than the previous year; and causing
325.3 billion RMB of direct economic losses, much less than the previous year.
6
Others
2
Integrated Disaster Risk Management of
China
2
2.1 Management System
In order to enhance emergency management and implement the governments’
function entirely, the Emergency Management Office of State Council at the national
level establishment is established in the April of 2006. It works as an operation hinge,
which takes charge of the daily work of the national emergency management,
responds to the public security events, collects the real-time information and
harmonizes the related departments. Since the establishment in 2006, the Emergency
Management Office of State Council has carried out some effective work to enhance
the disaster emergency management: helped actualize and implement the Master State
Plan for Rapid Response to Public Emergencies of China; held the emergency
management working meeting of State Council and the management working meeting
of enterprise emergency work, to deploy and unify the emergency management, and
emphasizes the governments of all levels to enhance emergency ability construction
and get prepared for the prevention and dealing for the public security emergencies;
started the Key Technologies R & D Program for the emergency platform construction
to provide science and technology supporting for emergency management and
increase the emergency treatment efficiency.
So far, the Chinese disaster risk (public security) management system has
established, namely “one office and four committees”: the establishment of the
Emergency Management Office of State Council at the national level and the
corresponding organizations with regard to the four public security incidents—the
National Committee for Disaster Reduction to manage natural disasters, the National
Committee for Work Safety to manage industry accidents, the National Committee for
Patriotic Health to manage public health and the National Committee for integrated
management to manage public security. The four committees are made up of a vice
president or a committeeman of the State Council of China as committee director, a
minister or vice minister from the main related ministries as administrative vice
director or vice director, and the vice ministers from the corresponding ministries as
committee members. At the local levels, there are corresponding disaster risk (public
security) management organizations with accordance to the national level. The local
emergency management centre and the committees for the four public security
incidents management have been gradually established. The disaster risk management
organization system of China can be concluded as the follows (Fig. 2).
7
Fig. 2 Disaster risk management organization system of China
Besides, in order to enhance the disaster risk management work, in these related
ministries and commissions, the corresponding management centers have been
established, such as the Chinese Center for disease control and prevention (Ministry
of Health), the National Disaster Reduction Center of China ( Ministry of Civil
Affairs), the Chinese Supervision Center for Work Safety?State Administration of
Work Safety), etc.
In conclusion, China has started disaster risk (public security) management work
on the basis of traditional disaster management and reduction, and has formed the
primary disaster risk management framework of related professional fields. Besides, it
is supposed to legislate emergency laws to enhance the legal system construction of
disaster risk emergency management; The China Association for Disaster Prevention
also established the first professional organization for risk research, which has been
named as the Risk Analysis Specialty Committee; many Chinese universities and
research institutes have been doing research on natural disasters, engineering hazards,
economic risk, crisis management and disaster risk management, and so on. However,
compared with the international situation, disaster risk management in China is facing
an austere and significant challenge but also a very good opportunity.
2.2 Management Mechanism
On the basis of the existing disaster risk management resources, in the January of
2006, the state council of China promulgated the Master State Plan for Rapid
Response to Public Emergencies, with the aim to improve the government’s public
security dealing and responding ability, minimize the loss of the public security events
and promote the harmony and sustainable development of the whole society. The
Master State Plan is the general program for the national emergency plan system and
is the criterion file for the prevention and treatment of the public security events,
which clarifies the classification and framework of the public security events,
8
prescribes the organization system, operation mechanism of the severe emergency
dealing. The Master State Plan emphasizes to establish an emergency mechanism of
classified management, different-level responsibility, bar and block combination but
mainly depending on the blocks. Here, the bars mean the professional technology
departments, while the blocks mean the local governments of all levels. So it can be
regarded that the Chinese disaster risk management system depends mainly on the
central management, with the mutual cooperation between the central government and
the local governments. The related departments of the central government and the
local governments take their corresponding pre-disaster, in-disaster and post-disaster
responsibilities, and there’s no single government department in charge of all the tasks
(including disaster preparedness, emergency and disaster recovery and reconstruction)
of a single public security factor.
The Chinese regional integrated disaster risk management mode persists in the
principle of “give priority to disaster prevention, and combine disaster prevention
with disaster resistance and relief”. Namely, before disaster occurrence, it’s important
to establish and consummate the monitoring and warning system, carry out
emergency planning, strengthen emergency material reserving ability, build
ecologically healthy environment, accelerated regional economy and reduce disaster
vulnerability; During disaster period, it’s emphasized to improve emergency response
ability, highlight the human-oriented actions, reduce the casualty and property loss
and protect natural resource and environment maximally; After disaster, it’s suggested
to strengthen the government and society relief ability of all levels, especially the
community self-rescue and self-relief ability, and based on the results of the rapid
disaster loss assessment, it’s urgent to recover lifeline and product line systems and
accelerate reconstruction efficiency and effect.
By now, the natural disaster risk governance in China are taken charge by
different ministries or bureaus in terms of different kinds of natural hazards, e.g.
China Earthquake Administration takes charge of risk governance of earthquake
disaster, China Meteorological Administration takes charge of risk governance of
meteorological disasters, Ministry of Water Resources takes charge of risk governance
of floods and droughts, Ministry of Land and Resources takes charge of risk
governance of land slide and debris flow, State Ocean Administration takes charge of
risk governance of ocean disaster, and so on. To enhance risk governance of some
large-scale disaster, the State Council has set up several leading groups for natural
disaster governance, such as State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters
and State Earthquake Relief Headquarters. Correspondingly, each regional and local
government set up relevant departments. There are corresponding organizations in the
local governments of all the levels in China. In a word, China adopts the natural
disaster risk governance system of combined vertical inter-government and
inter-regional management mode where vertical sector management is prior to
integrated regional management.
9
2.2.1
Monitoring and Warning
During the disaster preparedness period, the mitigation and prevention work is
taken charge by the professional technical departments, namely the bars.
In the recent years, the Chinese government has increased the investment on
natural disaster monitoring and warning system construction, and has established the
natural disaster monitoring, warning and forecasting system primarily, including the
meteorological disasters monitoring and forecast, the earthquake monitoring and
forecast, the hydrological monitoring forest fire prevention, the forest and crop pests
monitoring and forecasting, the marine environment monitoring, the geological
disasters monitoring and early warning. This natural disaster monitoring, warning and
forecasting system can monitor the disaster dynamic development, and provide the
information for the disaster emergency decision-making. Furthermore, China plans to
launch two small optical satellites and one small SAR satellite in 2007, which is
called the "2+1” Project, and also another 4 optical satellites and 4 SAR satellites
before 2010 for the environmental and disaster monitoring and forecast. The ever
improving monitoring and early warning systems virtually covering natural disasters
of all kinds ensures timely response to disasters with effective rescue and relief
efforts.
Meanwhile, since the SARS event broke out in 2003, the Chinese Center for
Disaster Control and Development under the leadership of the Ministry of Health
began to pay more attention to public health events, and established a series of files on
public health risk management correspondingly, which made Chinese public health
risk management became regular and developed to an international way. The national
epidemic monitoring network of all levels and disease prevention and cure system has
been well formed and improved.
2.2.2
Emergency Response
During the disaster period, the emergency management offices and the disaster
reduction committees of all levels are in charge of the emergency response, together
with the Civil Affairs departments, the Public Security departments, the arms, etc.
Namely the bars and the blocks are combined together closely and rapidly to deal with
the emergencies as soon as there are emergency event. At present, a disaster
emergency response system is up and running to guarantee that rescue taskforces,
relief supplies, funds and information are on the ground and in place to address the
immediate and real needs of the affected.
According to disaster emergency management, the Chinese government has
strengthened the emergency plan system construction. In the Master State Plan for
Rapid Response to Public Emergencies, the public security events are divided into
four kinds (natural disasters, industry accidents, public health and social security)
according to their occurring process, characteristics and mechanism, and four grades
(huge, bigger, big and ordinary grade) according to their severity degree, degree to be
10
controlled and affected range. And it’s prescribed that the huge and bigger grade
emergencies must be reported to the State Council in 4 hours after the occurrence, and
the local governments or related departments have to start the related emergency plan
timely and effectively in the responsibility and power range to control the further
development. Besides, there have been several special plans and department plans for
Rapid Response to Public Emergencies; and the plans for Rapid Response to Public
Emergencies of national and local governments have also been compiled and
accomplished, which makes the disaster risk management and disaster reduction more
regular and systematic. Up to March 15th 2006, China has constituted 24,293
emergency response plans for unexpected public accidents, in which 1 national, 25
special, and 80 sectional, 971 from the sectors in the State Council (not including 80
sectional ones), 158 from central enterprises, 23058 regional ones. By now, the
national emergency plan system has formed initiatively, and the emergency
management system is under rapid construction.
As for the natural disaster emergency, as prescribing in the “State Emergency
Response Planning for Natural Disasters”, according to the disaster loss degree, the
Ministry of Civil Affairs of China adopts a four-grade response system (Fig. 3). In
other words, different emergencies influence degree is treated by the governments of
different levels. The more severe the situation is, the higher level of the government
will response and do decision-making
Fig. 3 Emergency response degrading for natural disasters in China
The further emergency management work emphasis will focus on the emergency
management platform, including the integrated natural disaster information platform,
the emergency network communication platform, the emergency decision-making
supporting platform and emergency commanding platform. It’s important to share
information and cooperate comprehensively to react and respond timely and
effectively. Meanwhile it’s also essential to enhance the related research like the
disaster loss assessment, disaster process simulation, and the ability construction
including disaster rescue equipments, emergency commanding, etc.
11
2.2.3
Relief?Recovery and Reconstruction
During the post-disaster period, the disaster relief and recovery work is charged
by the local disaster reduction committees, which works as a coordinator for the main
departments to organize the people in disaster area to recover to the normal life state,
which includes the Civil Affairs departments, the Health departments, the
Development and Deform Commission, the Finance departments, the
Communications departments, the Construction departments, the Railway
departments, etc. Namely, the blocks are the main responsibility body. Among these
different departments, the Civil Affairs department takes the main responsibility for
the disaster victims’ life relief, and the insurance companies carry out the
compensation for the disaster victims to help them to recover as soon as possible.
With regard to the disaster relief work, the Ministry of civil affairs of China has
set up the central system of material reserve for disaster relief since 1998. At present,
the central stations of material reserve has been build in ten cities, which include
Shenyang city, Ha’erbin city, Tianjin city , Zhengzhou city, Hefei city, Wuhan city,
Changsha city, Nanning city, Chengdu city and Xi’an city. Some regions of high
disaster frequencies, high vulnerability has also built the local storages of material
reserve for disaster relief. Thus, the network of material reserve network for disaster
relief which relies on the disaster relief storages has been established. At present, the
central reserve bases store 135000 tents, and the local reserve bases store 236000 tents.
If the severe disaster happens, the first tents for disaster relief would be sent out to the
people in the 24 hours.
At the same time, the Chinese government encourages the public social donation
activities from the whole society and the NGOs to be an important force in the
post-disaster period, including the endowment activity for the severe disaster, the
mutual support activity between the eastern area and ten provinces in the west, and
the disaster relief activity of the social organization. There are nearly 30 thousand
urban donation receiving stations in China, carrying out regular social donation
activities perennially, especially in the period when some natural disasters occurs.
This social mobilization mechanism provides a solid material supporting for disaster
management, and help the people in the less-developed area to recover rapidly after
disasters.
2.3 Management Legalization
China has instituted, promulgated and enforced 30-odd laws and regulations as it
moves forward to phase in a legal framework for disaster reduction. But the laws and
regulations are all about single aspects of the disaster risk management, such as “Law
of the People’s Republic of China on Protecting Against and Mitigating Earthquake
Disasters”, “Flood Control Law of the People's Republic of China”, “Law of the
People's Republic of China on Safety in Mines” and so on, the systematic and
comprehensive series of laws and regulations about disaster reduction have not been
12
constituted, especially in disaster relief, disaster insurance, post-disaster subsidy for
reconstruction, tax declining for the victims, and so on. Moreover, existing laws and
regulations are generally aimed at singe disaster types. So it’s urgent to legislate a law
in the integrated disaster risk management to carry out integrated disaster prevention
and reduction, and there isn’t explicit legal status for any integrated and coordinated
sectors.
3 Understanding of Integrated Disaster Risk Management
Mode
3.1 Integrated disaster risk administration mode
Considering the complexity of disaster
system and its chains, and the advantages of
different modes of regional disaster risk
P
governance from several countries, here we
put forward a mode of Integrated Disaster
Risk Administration Mode (IDRAM). The
Io
relationship among vertical, horizontal, and
institutional harmonization in the IDRAM
Lo
La
for integrated regional disaster reduction is
expressed in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. This
Fig. 4 Sketch map of integrated disaster
three-dimensional mode put horizontal
risk administration mode
harmonization, vertical harmonization, and
institutional harmonization together. Vertical
harmonization (Lo) means harmonization among central, and all levels of regional
governments, where local governments are more important in the field of disaster
reduction management; Horizontal harmonization (La) means harmonization among
different government departments and other disaster reduction organizations;
Institutional harmonization (P) means harmonization among all kinds of policies
related to disaster reduction. And the optimization of system structure in searching for
bettering system functioning means to find best usage of disaster reduction resources
(Io) from vertical and horizontal harmonization by coordination of policies (P) related
to disaster reduction.
This management mode of IDRAM is precious for constructing harmonious
society and well-off society to enhance natural disaster risk governance in China, and
it is meaningful to build a safe world. Meanwhile, it would promote science and
technology of public security and personnel training of risk management.
13
in
g
ito
r
m
on
ng
ec
as
t
fo
r
wa
rn
i
n
to
co
l
as
se
ss
m
en
t
pr
o
ch
m
at
io
re
se
ar
in
fro
ca
tio
n
ed
u
eg
ion
s
te
r
an
di
nte
gr
a
sy
ste
m
for
m
Re
R
in eg
te io
gr na
at l
cip
io
n
le/
sc
al e
pr
in
Fig. 5 Integrated disaster risk administration mode
As the diversity of public security elements, integrated disaster risk
administration management should first achieve the vertical harmonization, namely
harmonious between central, and all levels of regional governments, where local
governments are more important in the field of disaster reduction management. All
levels of principals should work together, and the administrative regions of different
levels should be well harmonized. Therefore, the maximum efficiency and effect of
disaster reduction resources use can be achieved, which can be called “vertical to the
end with no blank”. Meanwhile, the horizontal harmonization among different
government departments and other disaster reduction organizations is also very
important. In other words, it’s significant to fully promote the active role of
government at all levels and related institutions of disaster risk management, and
improve the intercommunication and cooperation, which can be called “horizontal to
the margin and no dead angle”. The Chinese governments have established some
coordinating departments in same level of government departments, such as the
National Disaster Reduction Committee, Anti-flood and anti-drought Guide group of
the State Council. At last, in order to realize vertical and horizontal harmonization,
co-construction and share disaster risk management information, improve efficiency
of resources use and information communication, institutional harmonization is an
14
indispensable precondition. Legislation of related laws on disaster risk management,
which coordinate organizational and individual behaviors in vertical and horizontal
harmonization, could fully exploit governmental and social resources for disaster
reduction. This means achieve integrated administrative management of public
security through the harmonization of related policies, for example, the coordination
between regional development planning and disaster reduction planning, between
urban planning and its hydrological network protection, between land development
planning and ecological construction, between flood-drought disaster and soil water
conservation.
3.2 Integrated disaster risk governance mode
Regional integrated disaster process determines the mode of regional disaster
risk governance. Therefore, it’s necessary to confirm the main factors relating to
integrated disaster risk governance, according to the time, space, attribute
organization, management and other aspects. From the spacial perspective, it’s
supposed to compartmentalize the high, middle and low risk area in the entire disaster
region; from the temporal perspective, it’s supposed to compartmentalize the stage
before, during and after disaster; from the attribute perspective, it’s supposed to
confirm the relationship between the disaster region, disaster victims and disaster
effect; from the institutional perspective, it’s supposed to confirm the functions of the
governments, enterprises and communities; from the management perspective, it’s
supposed to clarify the duty of the centre, departmental and local governments. The
integrated disaster risk governance mode is to integrate these factors related to the
disaster risk governance, form the strongest integration force, and improve the
efficiency and effects of the disaster reduction resources consequently.
3.2.1
Factors related to integrated disaster risk governance
(1) Disaster risk zoning
According the historical disaster data, by estimating the exceeding probability,
it’s easy to confirm the various disaster risk levels, namely the realization of disaster
risk zoning. In China, flood risk is usually zoned by 1/100a, 1/50a and 1/20a, etc. The
division of the high risk, middle risk and low risk areas is not only needed to consider
the disaster intensity in the region, but also needed to consider the disaster diversity
and frequency. Therefore, the high risk area is where various disasters of great
intensity frequently occur and the disaster status is also of the most severity. By
compartmentalize the risk region, it provides clue and suggestion for regional
development planning, especially for directly supporting the regional land use
planning and ensuring that the regional development can avoid the high risk region.
15
(2) Stages of disaster reduction process
Disaster process commonly contains the three stages before disaster, during
disaster and after disaster. The task of pre-disaster reduction mainly includes disaster
supervision, warning and some other preparedness and plans for disaster. The task of
in-disaster reduction mainly focuses on emergency transfer, allocation and other
emergency task. And the task of post-disaster reduction mainly includes disaster
recovery and reconstruction.
(3) The definition of disaster region, victims and effect
Each disaster brings direct and indirect influence and losses. As the direct
disaster influence, the disaster region commonly refers to the hazard influencing
region. While as the indirect influence of the disaster, the disaster region is likely to
expand obviously with the evolvement and development of the disaster chains and
disaster process. Taking a watershed for example, the rainstorm in the upper region
necessarily affect the lower region, hence the disaster region expands from the upper
region to the entire watershed. Besides, the landslides and the mud and stone flows
caused by flood, destroy the traffic main lines. In this way, the region influenced by
the halt of the traffic expands, and accordingly the disaster region expands along the
traffic main lines. In July of 2006, the flood in Hunan province broke off the
Jingguang railway and Jingzhu freeway, which are the arteries of the south-north
traffic of China. As a result, the traffic along these main lines cannot perform
normally, and the disaster regional expand from Hunan to Guangdong, Hubei and
some other regions. Disaster victim commonly merely include the death, the wound
and the people affected by the disaster, namely three types in all. In the situation of
disaster, lots of basic facilities in the disaster region are affected, so precise
calculation of different disaster victims has great importance in taking transfer and
allocation measures. It also brings influence to making reconstruction plans in the
disaster region. Besides the disaster victims, the disaster effect includes the property
loss of the victims directly caused by disaster, the resources and environment damage,
as well as the indirectly economic loss and social influence (especially the impacts on
the normal economic and social process). The precise calculation of disaster effect is
still a quite difficult technical work.
(4) The confirmation of the disaster reduction organizations
Once a disaster happens, the disaster relevant organizations often include the
governments and its related departments, the enterprises and its affiliated sections, as
well as the disaster region communities ( mainly includes community projects, public
guarantee, and households, etc ). After disaster, the government as disaster victim not
only has to face and respond to the disaster, and also should mobilize various
resources to take part in the disaster reduction of the entire disaster region; the
enterprises which is also the victim of the disaster, should face and respond to the
disaster, and also play an important role in the material and equipment guaranteeing
for disaster as constitute of the production line or life line in the disaster region; the
16
communities, the most basic units of disaster reduction, it’s essential not only to
organize self-aid and mutual-aid when the disaster happens, but also plays a
determinative role in disaster reduction education and safety culture construction.
(5) The confirmation of disaster management levels
Different countries and regions have different governmental management modes.
Take China as an example, it is usually divided into the center, departmental and local
three systems. “Center” stands for the center of the Communist Party of China, the
State Council, the Central Military Commission?the National People’s Congress and
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference; “departmental” stands for
functional departments and affairs-handling departments which are affiliated to the
center of the Communist Party of China, the State Council and the Central Military
Commission; “local” can generally divided to four levels: provincial level
( municipality and autonomous regions), prefecture level (city at prefecture level and
region at prefecture level), county level (city at county level, region at county level
and street office at county level), town level (town at the town level and street
commission at the township level ). In the progress of implementing integrated
disaster risk management, it’s significant to clarify the division of duty and
responsibility of the centre, departmental and the local governments in the
implementation of the public security goal-“vertical to the end with no blank, and
horizontal to the margin with no dead angle”.
3.2.2
Integrated disaster risk governance mode
According to the integrated disaster process and the aforementioned main factors
of integrated disaster risk governance, Fig. 6 demonstrates the integrated disaster risk
governance mode. From the disaster management perspective, this mode clarifies the
responsibility among the central, departmental and local governments and promotes
an integrated disaster administration management system, namely cooperating the
governments of all levels to realize the “vertical to the end and horizontal to the
margin” integration; from the disaster process perspective, it clarifies the overall
planning before, during and after disaster to realize the integration of disaster
preparedness, emergency, recovery and reconstruction; from perspective of the
relevant disaster departments, it emphasizes the harmonization of the governments,
enterprises and communities to realize the integration of disaster capacity construction,
insurance and relief. The three types of integration mentioned above is the core
content of this integrated disaster risk governance.
In other words, this mode emphasizes that, under the guidance of scientific
disaster reduction, and in terms of the dynamic and non-dynamic actions in disaster
forming process, it’s essential to construct the system, mechanism and legislation for
integrated risk governance. The objective is to unite the governments, enterprises and
communities as an organic entity during the whole disaster reduction process
(including the pre-disaster preparedness, in-disaster emergency and post-disaster
recovery and reconstruction) and realize the disaster risk management goal.
17
Disaster (Public
Security) Types
Industry
Accident
Natural Disaster
Public Health
Social Scurity
Give Priority to Disaster Prevention and
Combine It with Disaster Resistance and Relief
Integrated Disaster
Risk Governace
Pre-disaster
In-disaster
Post-disaster
Disaster
Preparedness
Disaster Emergency
Disaster Recovery/
Reconstruction
Disaster Effect
Disaster Victims
Disaster Area
Government
Enterprise
Community
Capacity Construction
Insurance
Institutional
Harmonization
Vertical
Harmonization
Horizontal
Harmonization
Central
Government
Department
Region
Middle Risk Area
Low Risk Area
High Risk Area
Disaster Process
Dynamic Process
Pre-disaster
Scientific Foundation
for Disaster Reduction
Relief
Non-dynamic Process
In-disaster
Post-disaster
Vulnerability
Resilience
Adaptability
Risk
Integration
Regionality
Fig. 6 Integrated Disaster Risk Governance Mode
4 Integrated Disaster Risk Management Strategies of
China
4.1 To establish the “National Disaster Reduction Planning”
Disaster reduction has been high on the agenda for the central government,
which views it as vital to sustainable economic and social development, coordinated
development and harmony between economy, natural resources and ecology. The
18
central government has created the State Disaster Reduction Commission?SDRC? to
harness the synergy of relevant efforts and initiatives. 30-plus relevant laws and
regulations have been promulgated and put into force, integrating disaster reduction
into national legal framework. In 1998, the Disaster Reduction Planning of the
People’s Republic of China (1998-2010) was designed to identify guidelines, targets,
commitments and measures for disaster reduction efforts. With the guidance of the
Disaster Reduction Planning, all the local governments, the departments, and the
industries have enhanced the disaster reduction work effectively, and the integrated
disaster reduction ability is improved.
In the 11-fifth development of China, according to the new period development
needs and based on the Disaster Reduction Planning of the People’s Republic of
China (1998-2010), it’s necessary to establish more detailed National Integrated
Disaster Reduction Planning in the 11-fifth Period, to define the main tasks of the
national integrated disaster reduction and the key disaster reduction programs to be
implemented in this period. As the guidance for the disaster reduction work, this
new-period disaster reduction planning is now under the stage of experts’ auditing and
last-edition revision, which means that it’s going to be promulgated and implemented
all over the country immediately.
4.2 To accelerate the construction of disaster reduction ability
The Chinese government has paid much attention to the disaster reduction ability
construction. This can be proved from the disaster risk management research
programs. The National Natural Science Foundation and of China has sponsored and
carried out a large number of risk management research projects, such as “regional
disciplines of Chinese natural disaster” and so on. The Ministry of Science and
Technology also supports risk management research in the fields of major natural
disaster, engineering accidents, public health, and public security, through the Key
Technologies R&D Program every five-year period. Since the SARS event broke out in
2003, Chinese government greatly increases the investment and input in the public
security field, and a series of risk management research and technology development
became to carry out and develop quickly. However, the disaster reduction ability is
still needed to be accelerated, by learning from the developed and other developing
countries and through all the possible ways to utilize the disaster reduction resources
efficiently and effectively.
4.3 To improve the emergency response program
The Master State Program for Emergency Response is the general program for
the national emergency response program and is the criterion file for the prevention
and treatment of the public security events, which clarifies the classification and
framework of the public security events, prescribes the organization system, operation
19
mechanism of the severe emergency dealing. Although the Master State Program is of
great importance and guidance, it only pays much attention to the in-disaster
integrated response, but overlooks the integrated optimization among the in-disaster
emergency management, the pre-disaster mitigation, and the post-disaster recovery
and reconstruction. So it’s necessary to improve the rapid emergency response plans,
harmonize all the aspects of integrated disaster reduction, and ensure the emergency
response program is political, scientific and feasible.
4.4 To
strengthen
the
discipline
and
human
resource
construction of disaster reduction
The Chinese organizations dealing with disaster risk management research
mainly include the university research institutes, centres and laboratories, the academe
research organizations and the government departments or research organizations. The
research staff is made up of teachers and R&D members with a total amount of about
10 thousand. However, compared with the international situation, the Chinese disaster
risk management still needs to enhance the discipline and human resource
construction of disaster reduction. It's imperative to establish and develop the disaster
reduction science and technology in China. The disaster reduction science and
technology mainly contain the following parts: disaster science, to reveal the disaster
system structure and functioning, and the disaster-forming dynamic and non-dynamic
mechanism; emergency technology, to develop the technologies of disaster
preparedness, emergency, recovery and reconstruction; risk management, which
includes risk identification, perception, assessment, modelling and simulation,
communication and adaptation, the risk governance institution, mechanism and laws,
the risk transfer strategies and approaches, etc.
4.5 To improve the action of disaster rescue and disaster relief
A disaster rescue and relief mechanism has been put in place to regulate the
placement of the victimized, rescue and relief, recovery and reconstruction efforts.
The mechanism features rational input, comprehensive coverage and regulated
allocation and helps straighten out the management of emergency response, recovery
and reconstruction and the follow-up relief efforts to help the affected community to
tide over tough unproductive times. A system is in place to put the livelihood
arrangement of the affected on record, ensure that the relief efforts to help rebuild
houses are available to each village and household. The subsistence for the affected
has been well secured as the introduction of Relief Card Program has made relief
supplies accessible and available to the entire disaster-stricken community.
Despite all these efforts, the emergency rescue ability of China is limited.
Inadequate professional skill training and emergency rescue staff, and decentralized
rescue force are the main reasons for the weak professional rescue ability. Because of
20
the outdated equipment and information construction, the emergency response speed
is slow, and hard to implement efficient measures in time. Take work safety as an
example, currently, there are only 150 thousand rescue staff but are divided into more
than ten departments. So it’s urgent to promote the disaster rescue ability, increase the
practical emergency efficiency and effectiveness and guarantee the people’s life and
property security. Meanwhile, though the material reserving network for disaster relief
is established, the disaster relief degree is still limited for the developing country of
such a great population, which is not adequate for the victims to continue their normal
life. So it’s needed to continue to strengthen the disaster relief work, increase the
disaster relief degree and effectiveness.
4.6 To emphasize the financial mechanism of large-scale
disaster risk-transfer
The Chinese government is more and more taking insurance as an important
commercial way for disaster risk transfer. In 2006, the total insurance premium of
China is about 564.14 billion RMB Yuan, increasing 14.4% compared with the same
period last year. Property insurance accounts for 150.94 billion, increasing 22.6%; life
insurance accounts for 359.26 billion, increasing 10.7%; health insurance accounts for
53.94 billion, increasing 19%. The insurance depth is 2.8%, and the insurance density
is 431.3 RMB Yuan. But there is still a huge gap between insurance in China and the
World. China’s GDP ranks 4th in the world, while the premium ranks 11th. The global
average of premium proportion to GDP is 8%, while in China the number is 2.8%.
The global average premium per person is 512 USD, while in China the number is
55.3 USD. The ratio of the insurance capital to the whole finance industrial capital in
China is 1:33, while that of the developed countries is 1:5.
In China, the natural disaster insurance is just in the initiating stage. So far the
natural disaster insurance just played as an affiliation to property insurance for the
enterprises and rural families. The catastrophic and agricultural insurance is still under
developing. Some provinces are making experiments on agricultural natural disaster
insurance, including professional agricultural insurance company, agricultural
insurance company of foreign capital, the combination co-insurance between the
commercial insurance companies and the local governments, etc, but the testing range
is very limited.
In 2006, the State Council of China proclaimed “Some Opinions of the State
Council on the Reform and Development of the Insurance Industry”, which
emphasizes that insurance departments must sum all the experience up in the
insurance testing area, probing agricultural insurance developing mode suitable for
China, and extend the coverage of agricultural insurance. Construct an agricultural
insurance system with multi-form and multi-support. The document also said that the
old agricultural disaster mitigation mode should change to a new mechanism of
agricultural insurance combined with financial support from government. Meanwhile,
complete a multi-level agricultural catastrophic risk transition mechanism, exploring
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an agricultural reinsurance system with governmental financial support. Only in this
way can agricultural insurance be an important part in stabilizing the basic living
standard of farmers, improving the disaster resilience and serve well for rural society.
Beside the agriculture insurance as the key devoting direction of the Chinese
insurance industry, the catastrophe insurance is also under the research stage. With
regard to the catastrophes, according to statistical data, catastrophes happened in
China in 20 century account for 30% of global total catastrophes happened during the
period. The losses form natural disasters in China are on the rise, average annual
losses from natural disaster these years are 1.4 times of counterpart in the 1980’s.
Especially, damages caused by catastrophes increased faster. From 1950, there were
26 catastrophes happened in China, among which severe drought account for 10,
flood account for 5, earthquake 7 and storms 4. Beside the great losses caused by
catastrophes, great influence pressed on public’s mind, for instance the Tangshan
Earthquake in 1976 and floods in 1998. Based on researches it’s pointed out that
China will experience a severe natural disaster period in the early half century, and
this mean that China’s and global sustainable development of economy will face to a
big challenge. It’s a good chance for global insurance industry and other financial
industry to set up catastrophe insurance in China.
At present, China’s insurance industry experiences its primary development,
mature and self-contained catastrophe insurance system has not established yet. And
insurance companies in China are often on a small scale, lack in necessary national
financial policies support. These situations limited domestic insurance industry’s
ability of catastrophe insurance, hindering the development of catastrophe insurance
in China. Insurance companies’ management and service can’t meet the need of
catastrophe insurance management. As technology demand and cost in catastrophe
domain is high, insurance companies have difficulty to get an exact estimate about
loss form catastrophes such as earthquakes, storms floods, causing these insurance
agents unable to develop abundant types of catastrophe insurance product. Instead,
conservative attitude are often adopted in catastrophe insurance field.
Thus, it’s urgent to establish of catastrophe insurance system with Chinese
characteristics. According to distribution, occurrence situation, market requirement on
insurance, actual and macro-economic development of regions in China, taking
advantages of foreign successful model experience, with state financial support, in a
move to encourage domestic insurers to play a greater role in providing insurance for
potential disasters, a catastrophe insurance system with Chinese characteristics is
going to be established.
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References
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National emergency management working meeting document. [In Chinese]
[2] The State Council of China, 2006. The Master State Plan for Rapid Response to
Public Emergencies. [In Chinese]
[3] The State Council of China, 2005. The State Emergency Response Planning for
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[4] Shi Peijun, 1991. On the theory of disaster research and its practice [J]. Journal of
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Jiaotong university press, Xi'an. [In Chinese]
[10] China Insurance Regulatory Commission, 2007. The national Insurance Working
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[11] The State Council of China, 2006. Some Opinions of the State Council on the
Reform and Development of the Insurance Industry. [In Chinese]
[12] Wu Dingfu eds., 2006. China Risk Governance Report[M]. The Chinese Finance
and Economy Press. [In Chinese]
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