Warming Intensifies China's Extreme Weather as Disaster-Chain Risks Mount

In recent years, global warming has intensified, extreme weather events have become more frequent and stronger, and China's climate pattern has changed markedly. The summer main rain belt has shifted northward as a whole, putting flood-control systems in northern river basins under pressure and increasing the risk of new types of disasters such as seawater intrusion. Plateau glaciers continue to melt, the number of glacial lakes is rising and their water levels are climbing, and the risk of glacial lake outbursts triggering downstream floods and debris flows continues to rise. China lies at the intersection of the Circum-Pacific seismic belt and the Eurasian seismic belt. When disasters such as heavy rain, earthquakes, droughts and wildfires trigger one another, they accelerate the transmission of disaster chains and expand the scope of impact.

China still has shortcomings and weaknesses in disaster prevention, mitigation and relief. Extreme short-duration heavy rainfall, sudden mountain torrents and small-scale geological disasters are difficult to forecast, and the spatial and temporal uncertainty of the northward shift of the rain belt increases the difficulty of meteorological forecasting. Long-term monitoring data on glacier melt and glacial lake evolution are insufficient, and the ability to predict the transmission paths of disaster chains is limited. Emergency agencies in some counties and townships lack personnel and professional staff, while village-level monitoring, early warning and emergency evacuation capacity is weak. Geological disaster monitoring stations do not fully cover mountainous and remote areas, blind spots exist in monitoring of plateau glacial lakes, small and medium-sized reservoirs and rainfall and water conditions in northern river basins, and bottlenecks remain in the transmission of early warning information.

In some rural areas, houses do not meet seismic and flood-control standards. Emergency equipment and professional rescue forces in disaster-prone areas of central and western China are relatively underdeveloped; rescue equipment suited to high-altitude operations on the plateau and large-scale drainage equipment for flood control in the north are in short supply. Emergency support capacity is inadequate under conditions of severed roads, power and network connections. Channels for social forces to participate in disaster prevention and mitigation are not smooth enough, and market-based and socialized disaster relief and assistance mechanisms are not yet sound. These shortcomings involve monitoring and early warning, the foundation of grassroots disaster prevention, and emergency rescue forces.