Vulnerability of infrastructure to natural hazards and climate change in China

Infrastructure is a lifeline system to ensure social and economic activities of a country. Disrupting infrastructure will directly result in the luxation of the social–economic chain and then destroy the upstream and downstream industry development. China, as a developing country, has been experiencing a high frequency of natural disasters in recent years, especially those disasters that occur affecting a wide area, high frequency and severe damage, such as earthquake, typhoon, flood, drought, and freezing. The most direct and serious loss brought by those disasters is considerable damage to infrastructure. At the same time, China’s rapid economic development drives the fast growth of infrastructure construction, which also makes the newly constructed infrastructure significantly exposed to potential disasters. In addition, global warming and extreme climate events also severely affect the infrastructure of agriculture, industry, commerce, and energy systems in China. Therefore, it is important and indispensable to first analyze the vulnerability of infrastructure to natural disasters and climate change and then develop comprehensive approaches for disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery in China. In this special issue, we collected 16 contributions on vulnerability assessment, risk and emergency management against natural hazards, climate change, and environment, energy, and carbon emission assessment-related issues in China. All of these research papers help to broaden recognition of the current situation of infrastructure vulnerability in China both at the national and regional levels and to promote understanding of the roles and applications of various techniques to model the effects of natural hazards, climate change and its mitigation, energy saving, carbon emission reduction, and environmental protection efforts in China, so as to help policy design and public decision making.