China Issues 15th Five-Year Plan for Geological Disaster Prevention, Deploys Seven Key Projects
China's Ministry of Natural Resources released on August 4 the 15th Five-Year Plan for national geological disaster prevention, deploying seven key projects including dynamic surveys, monitoring and early warning, and comprehensive treatment. As of end-2025, nearly 280,000 registered hazard points threatened 11.48 million people and RMB 760.1 billion in property. The plan covers engineering treatment at more than 4,200 sites, hazard removal at over 6,100 locations, and relocation of 50,000 households, while delineating 21 key prevention zones spanning about 3.25 million square kilometers.
On August 4, 2026, the Ministry of Natural Resources released the National Geological Disaster Prevention 15th Five-Year Plan Implementation Plan, setting out key tasks for geological disaster prevention during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. As of the end of 2025, nearly 280,000 geological hazard points had been registered nationwide, threatening the safety of 11.48 million people and RMB 760.1 billion in property. In response to the characteristics of a large existing stock and many variables in geological hazards, the plan takes enhancing climate change risk response capacity as its main thrust, aiming to improve a sound, efficient and science-based geological disaster prevention system and comprehensively strengthen grassroots capacity to withstand geological disasters.
The plan deploys seven key projects, including dynamic surveys of geological hazard points and risk zones, enhancement of monitoring and early warning capabilities, and comprehensive treatment capability improvement. Under the comprehensive treatment capability improvement project, engineering treatment will be carried out at more than 4,200 hazard points, hazard removal at over 6,100 locations, and 50,000 households will be relocated from geological hazard areas. The plan also implements dual-control management over hazard points and risk zones, enhances disaster response and grassroots prevention capabilities, strengthens innovation in geological disaster prevention theory and technical methods, and builds and improves the One Map sub-scenario for geological disaster prevention.
The plan delineates 21 key geological disaster prevention zones nationwide during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Among them, 17 key zones for landslides, collapses, mudflows and ground collapses cover a total area of about 2.97 million square kilometers, while four key zones for ground subsidence and ground fissures cover about 280,000 square kilometers. Building on the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the key prevention zones have been expanded, with new zones added for the Yaxia hydropower project construction, high-position remote geological hazard chains and the Yanshan-Taihang Mountains regions, and the key prevention zones in the southeastern hills and southwestern mountainous areas have been refined, reflecting the urgency of disaster prevention in relation to major engineering projects in recent years, hidden high-position remote chain-type hazards and disaster prevention in northern regions.