Preface

Catastrophes that are beyond the coping capability of current social-ecological systems are occurring at an increasing pace in recent years. Examples are the devastating Hurricane Katrina occurred in the United States in 2005, the extreme low-temperature freezing rain and snow disaster in southern China in 2008, the Wenchuan Earthquake in Sichuan, China in 2008, and the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. These catastrophes brought great challenges to existing disaster planning, response, and management, as well as to post-disaster reconstruction efforts. As a result, questions such as how to reduce disaster risks and cope with catastrophes more effectively have caught widespread attention of scientific communities, governments, and societies both at home and abroad. In order to strengthen the innovation capability of scientific disciplines, the Chinese government, through the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA), organized and implemented the Expertise-Introduction Project for Disciplinary Innovation of Universities (the “111 Project”) that aims at building capacities of Chinese higher education institutions and facilitating their transformation into world-class universities. The project’s overall goal is to develop about 100 world-class research and education bases for introducing talents of various disciplines through building high-level research teams formed by some 1,000 leading overseas scholars and researchers introduced from the world’s top 100 universities and key research groups of research institutions, and is based on the platforms of national, provincial, and ministerial level key scientific research bases. It focuses on cutting-edge research areas internationally and national key disciplinary development goals, and prioritizes disciplines in universities that have a leading position internationally or disciplines that are priority support areas in national plans. The Hazard and Risk Science Base (HRSB) at Beijing Normal University is one of the projects under the “111 Project.” In the third batch of the “111 Project,” the Hazard and Risk Science Base of Beijing Normal University was approved officially at the end of 2007 and implemented from the beginning of 2008, with an execution period between 2008 and