Natural disasters are a common challenge for mankind, and disaster prevention and reduction is also a common topic for all countries in the world, especially in countries along the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’,” said Prof. Cui Peng, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Science Committee Member of IRDR of ISC/UNDRR, Co-Director General of China-Pakistan Joint Research Center of Earth Sciences, Co-Founder of International Association for Disaster Risk Reduction (IADRR).
Mentioning the floods in Pakistan, “We’re happy to share our experience with Pakistan in many fields,” Cui noted, adding that such fields includes systematic understanding of debris-flow formation mechanism, risk assessment, monitoring and early warning; the development of integrated disaster mitigation techniques; systematic understanding of the mechanisms for earthquake induced geological hazards such as seismic landslide and dammed lake, and risk assessment methods based on dynamic process and scale-up effect.
As per Prof. Cui, many countries are prone to natural disasters, and some of them are catastrophic. On average, the loss due to natural disasters in BRI countries is more than twice the world average. And the casualties are even more, especially in South Asia, where the casualties in some cases have reached ten times. “Therefore, joining hands in the prevention and control of natural disasters is of great significance,” Prof. Cui told China Economic Net.
Prof. Cui has long been engaged in mountain hazard research with a focus on debris flow and landslides, as well as water and soil conservation. As a scientist who has also been devoted to applying disaster risk reduction knowledge and techniques in catastrophic events at home and abroad, as well as in mountainous areas, infrastructures and scenic areas, Cui has successfully applied mitigation techniques to the mega debris-flow events in Venezuela and Zhouqu, China, earthquakes in Nepal and Wenchuan, China, large dammed lake and geo-hazards along the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan.
When he attended the Parallel Session on Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Management under the Fifth Hongqiao International Economic Forum for the Fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE) earlier this week, he said that coping with the risk of catastrophic disasters often requires the joint response of many countries, and all parties must strengthen international cooperation for disasters such as the floods in Pakistan.
“We must further explore cross-border disaster information sharing and disaster prevention mechanisms,” noted Cui, adding that the top priority is to help Pakistan and other countries in need improve their natural disaster monitoring capacity, and then to establish a data sharing mechanism.
“We are willing to share China’s disaster reduction technology with Pakistan and promote them according to local conditions,” he further said.
