Pan-participatory Assessment and Governance of Earthquake Risks in the Ordos Area (PAGER-O)

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This research will be of direct and immediate impact to the ministries in China with responsibility for Earthquake hazard and risk: the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).

The research outputs will be used by both ministries to develop policy and produce guidelines for the reduction of seismic hazard, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas.

The inhabitants of these areas will also benefit, both from the eventual improvement of the top-down management of earthquake disaster risk reduction but also - more immediately - from engagement in practical approaches to the assessment and mitigation of the hazards that directly affect their communities.

This research will also add to the UK's base of expertise in earthquake hazards in Eurasia. One never knows where the next devastating earthquake will strike, but each such event prompts international response, and the UK has to consider the appropriate actions to take (whether they be of relief, or merely to assure the safety of its citizens). Indeed, Investigators of this proposal gave advice the the SAGE committee in respect of the recent Nepalese earthquake.

The transdisciplinary nature of the research proposed here is relatively new, and the young Chinese researchers involved in this project will benefit form the experience of working in an environment that crosses the boundaries between disciplines in a way that is unfamiliar to them.

We expect that the outcomes of this work will be of interest to the reinsurance and construction industries.