@SciPark.CN

Seismic Jolt

The deadly Wenchuan earthquake taught China hard lessons about the importance of early warnings and disaster mitigation

Caijing Magazine, Annual Edition 2009

By staff reporter Li Hujun

   Shortly after China’s worst earthquake in decades hit Sichuan Province’s county of Wenchuan, seismologist Li Zhiqiang of the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) predicted the death toll would “quite likely be close to that of the Tangshan earthquake.”

   The Tangshan quake in 1976 killed about 240,000 people and seriously injured another 160,000. But the Wenchuan tremblor was more intense, according to Chinese authorities, measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale and at least 11.0 in intensity at its epicenter.

    The May 12, 2008 Wenchuan disaster claimed about 87,000 lives, ranking it the second deadliest, after the Tangshan tragedy, in the history of modern China.

    Many experts were puzzled and saddened by the failure to predict the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, which was followed by a 6.1 magnitude quake August 30 that rocked the city of Panzhihua as well as Huili County in Sichuan Province, and a 6.6 magnitude temblor October 6 in Tibet’s Dangxiong County.

In addition, although Chinese Seismological Networks Center data indicates that the country is experiencing a high period for seismic activity, experts cannot determine how long this period will last, nor predict what 2009 will hold. That means it’s possible that 2009 will be another tense year for professional earthquake watchers and forecasters in China.

In an interview with the official newspaper People’s Daily commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Tangshan earthquake in 2006, CEA Director Chen Jianmin indicated the nation’s seismologists could, to a certain extent, predict earthquakes of certain types in specific regions. He said more than 20 incidents had been successfully predicted in the years after Tangshan, helping avert disasters in 10 percent of all predicted cases.

In the wake of the Wenchuan disaster, Chen acknowledged the fact that China’s failures in earthquake prediction had far outweighed the successes. “We are still in the trial and error stage,” Chen said at the 14th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (WCEE) on October 13, 2008 in Beijing. The common opinion among scientists currently holds that even a rudimentary ability to accurately predict earthquakes is at least several decades away.

Because China is still undergoing economic transformation, differences in regional economies and a motley mix of old and new buildings highlight the lack of quake-proofing in many areas  a situation that will be difficult to improve in the short term. Therefore China’s future ability to prevent earthquakes and mitigate disasters would partly hinge on its earthquake forecasting abilities.

Research and Models

    Understanding the causes of earthquakes is the first step in accurately predicting temblors. So after the Wenchuan tragedy, the Chinese government increased investment in this area of research.

   An example of the new commitment is the Wenchuan Earthquake Fault Line Scientific Exploratory Drilling Project, which began in November 2008. The project involves a long-term, deep seismic observation system created by drilling two guide holes 1,200 meters into the ground, and two scientific boreholes reaching depths of 3,000 meters.

   Scientists hope the four-year project, a joint effort of the Ministry of Science and Technology along with the Ministry of Land and Resources and CEA, will increase understanding of an earthquake fault line under Wenchuan and provide basic data to aid future predictions, early warnings and monitoring.

   In addition to earthquake predictions, timely reports of quake intensity as well as early warning system are useful tools to mitigate disaster. Certainly, China’s system for rapid monitoring could be improved. Imitating a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) system, for example, could be a worthy goal.

    “China’s failures in earthquake prediction had far outweighed the successes.”

On the day of the Wenchuan disaster, a USGS mapping report, called ShakeMap, showed the intensity of tremors in quake zone areas just two hours after the temblor hit. These “intensity distribution maps” showed that Wenchuan county was not the only area hit badly and a primary disaster zone with an intensity of 10 stretched from the town of Yingxiu in Wenchuan to Beichuan county.

   However, China’s CEA wasn’t able to release the similar report during the day nor did it disseminate the USGS report. While the ShakeMap is based on preliminary data   and is by no means completely accurate,  the information is invaluable for emergency rescue teams.

    Another trend-setter is Japan’s earthquake early warning system — the world’s first when it was launched in October 2007. The system can raise a red flag before disaster strikes by observing the unique properties of earthquake waves. Longitudinal waves move quickly but have little destructive force, while transverse waves that move slowly are highly destructive. Japanese experts claim many deaths associated with the Wenchuan earthquake could have been prevented if such an early warning system were in place.

    Shortcomings in China’s rapid reporting and early warning systems are well known. CEA’s Chen said at a November 2008 meeting of the China Seismological Networks Center that near-event reports about intensities and disaster conditions should be broadened to provide scientific support to earthquake and disaster relief command centers more quickly and effectively.

   The Chinese government has approved plans to set up a demonstration early warning system in the Beijing and Lanzhou areas. Some provinces and cities are working with CEA as well, underscoring the widespread interest in this potentially lifesaving effort.

Wenchuan Lessons

   To a large extent, these decisions were born from the Wenchuan earthquake. But more is expected. For example, the public still hopes the government will release an objective report about the many schools that collapsed in the Wenchuan disaster. For those that toppled due to poor quality construction, it’s hoped the courts will get involved in a timely manner.

   “After the Wenchuan earthquake, there was an intense debate on the Internet among earthquake engineering experts as to what we had gotten wrong,” said Tsuneo Katayama, president of International Association for Earthquake Engineering, at the opening ceremony of the 14th WCEE.

   “Many agreed that the huge losses of life and property were the result of a number of factors, including insufficient government oversight, construction quality, societal and economic limitations, a lack of awareness, corruption and cultural traditions. Of course, this is an extremely complicated problem, and finding real solutions in any given area is not easy,” he said.

   A proposed amendment to China’s Earthquake Prevention and Disaster Mitigation Law offer a promising answer to the weak links in a system laid bare by the 2008 disasters. In October 2008, during the fifth session of the 11th National People’s Congress Standing Committee, a draft amendment was submitted. A month of public input followed.

   The draft called for improving rules for quake-proof construction and said “schools, hospitals, shopping centers, transport hubs, public cultural facilities and other construction projects involving high concentrations of people should be designed to exceed local quake-proofing requirements for housing construction.” Moreover, for the first time, the proposed amendment calls for bringing quake proofing to rural areas by requiring “research, development and promotion of seismic safety technologies in the countryside.”

Implementing these new rules could pose a challenge, but retooling China’s disaster prevention and mitigation system could be even more difficult.

@SciPark.CN

What happens after the Olympics?

August 29, 2007

The environment has been a serious worry for the organisers of Beijing’s 2008 Olympics. China’s government may have this under control, writes Taige Li, but what about when the visitors leave?

http://www.chinadialogue.cn/article/show/single/en/1274-What-happens-after-the-Olympics-

With the 2008 Olympics less than a year away, Beijing’s environment has become the organisers’ biggest worry. Speaking to CNN, Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said that poor air quality in the capital could mean endurance events like long-distance cycle races would have to be postponed. Guangzhou newspaper the Southern Daily went as far as to say that if improvements are not made, the Beijing Olympics may be the most polluted ever.

However, the Chinese government is now doing everything within its power to ensure environmental quality for the Games, and the worries may be unnecessary. Starting on August 17, Beijing implemented a four-day restriction on car use. Vehicles with a license plate ending in either an odd or even number were forbidden to enter the city on any one day; the measure was estimated to have kept 1.3 million cars off the road each day. Beijing’s Environmental Protection Monitoring Centre tested the air to see what effect the changes had, and the lessons from this experiment will be applied during the Olympics. Measures on this scale are rare and demonstrate the determination and power of the government.

Moreover, this is only one of the temporary measures planned for the Olympics. Beijing’s Legal Daily reported that in the two months before the Games some factories will be forced to stop production, building sites will cease work and even Beijing’s surrounding provinces of Shanxi, Tianjin, Hebei and Inner Mongolia will have to bring air pollution under control.

It seems Beijing is revising its plans for improving air quality during the Games. Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing’s Environmental Protection Agency, did not reveal specific details when he was interviewed on August 13, but he did say that during the Olympics, “strict measures will be implemented to reduce vehicle emissions, building site dust and other sources of air pollution.”

However, while it is quite plausible that these temporary measures will ensure good air quality for the 2008 Olympics, what about when the Games finish?

Beijing Shougang – the steel company that was at one time the city’s major polluter – has moved out of the capital, and now vehicle emissions are the main source of air pollution. But the government has encouraged the car industry and the public’s desire to own a car. The number of private vehicles is expanding at an astonishing pace, as it is in every Chinese city. In May this year there were 3 million vehicles in the capital, the majority of them privately owned.

However, it is Beijing’s chronic water shortages that present the city with its greatest challenge. The capital has 300 cubic metres of water per head annually, far below 1,000 cubic metres – the internationally recognised standard for water scarcity. To ensure that the capital has enough to drink, provinces such as Shanxi and Hebei – which already face shortages – have been forced to pipe in their water. And water consumption and pollution will only increase with the construction of the Olympic venues, the Games themselves, the building of an accompanying infrastructure and the construction that arises from an expected increase in GDP.

The office responsible for the South-to-north Water Transfer has said the stretch from Shijiazhuang to Beijing will be ready in time for the Olympics, and that water will be moved from four reservoirs in Hebei province to Beijing in the case of emergency. The central section of the project starts in Mujiangkou Reservoir, in Hubei province, and ends in Beijing.

But even this is not enough to quench Beijing’s thirst. Shi Qianyi, professor at Tsinghua University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, wrote in China Environmental News in 2000 that this will only provide 1 billion cubic metres of water annually – and at a cost that consumers will find hard to accept. She warned: “if the problems of water scarcity and pollution are not solved, we may end up worrying about moving the capital.” Niu Youcheng, the capital’s deputy mayor, admitted in September last year that with the Beijing’s ever-growing population, water scarcity was the main factor limiting urban development.

It is astounding that a city with such extreme water shortages is expanding at the speed it is; Beijing’s population stood at 15.81 million at the end of 2006. It also attracts a large number of migrant workers from around China, with the population increasing 430,000 between 2005 and 2006 – the equivalent of a medium-sized city every year. This worsens congestion and air pollution, as well as increasing the pressure on water resources. In this sense at least, Beijing is not developing in a sustainable manner.

And the Olympics have only added fuel to Beijing’s fire. Holding the Games in Beijing is a good thing for China – and for the entire world. But sometimes I wonder why Beijing bid for the games, rather than another city with a smaller population and greater water resources. The capital is confident it will ensure adequate water and air quality for the Olympics, but does it feel the same about dealing with the city’s environmental burdens when the spectators and athletes leave?

Du Shaozhong said that improving air quality is not only about the Olympics, but it should also benefit the city’s 15 million residents. However, maintaining air quality after the Olympics will be a Herculean task. Car owners can take the bus for a few days, but they will not leave their beloved vehicles at home forever. Temporary measures – such as taking over a million cars off the road, closing down factories and building sites – can hardly become permanent.

Whatever happens, policy-makers can draw on the Olympic experience. For instance, if taking cars off the road has a real impact on air quality and congestion, more parking places in city outskirts and increased parking costs in the centre will encourage drivers to use public transport to reach the city centre.

China could also consider decentralisation. This would see the government use administrative orders and market mechanisms to move organisations and companies out of Beijing to the city’s satellite towns like Tongzhou and Shunyi. Employees could afford to live locally and would not need to commute to central Beijing, reducing the pressure on the capital’s environment. Or they could be moved out of the city environs altogether. Beijing is not only the capital; it is a political, economic and cultural centre. However, it has failed to spur the economic and cultural development of its surrounding areas. And with the city suffering from water scarcity, why not encourage organisations and people to move elsewhere?

There are many other measures that could be taken. Nobody wants clear water and blue skies to be short-lived benefits of the Olympics. Perhaps our decision-makers need to start thinking now about how these improvements can be maintained.

Taige Li is a Beijing-based journalist. He obtained a masters degree in engineering from Sichuan University in 1997, and studied as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2003-2004.

A battle between humans and mice is raging in the Dongting Lake area of China’s Hunan Province. According to the province’s Department of Agriculture, the number of mice in the area has exploded to up to 2 billion in recent months. In the Datong Lake section of the area, authorities captured more than 90 tons of mice within three days.

Since June 20, when the gates of the Three Gorges dam were opened to release flood waters caused by upstream rainfall, the water level of Dongting Lake has risen by nearly half a meter a day on average. The higher water has forced many mice that inhabited the lake’s low-lying shoal to migrate to the higher ground of the dike.

From a timing perspective, the massive migration of the mice appears to have some connection to the Three Gorges flood discharge. But how close is the link?

In May 2002, Professor Cong Guo and his students at what is now the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture under the Chinese Academy of Sciences published a paper evaluating the impacts of the Three Gorges project on the Dongting Lake mouse population. They analyzed historical data on the lake’s evolution, changes in the water level, and the population dynamics of the mice.

The paper predicted that completion of the dam project would reduce the flood discharge flow in October and December, causing the water level of Dongting Lake to drop and increasing the period during which the lake’s shoal would remain above the surface. Prolonged exposure of the shoal would subsequently lengthen the reproduction period of the mice that inhabited it. According to the paper, the earlier the water ebbed during the previous year, the later it would rise in the current year, and the greater the mouse population would be. The researchers concluded that, “in Dongting Lake area, in the short term after the Three Gorges dam is completed, the change in the mouse population will be sudden, while over the middle and long term, such change will become a gradual and slow process. The common characteristic is that the number of mice will increase, and the harm to the surrounded farmland will worsen.”

Guo, who is now teaching at the School of Life Sciences at Sichuan University, confirms that reduced flow from the Three Gorges dam could expose the Dongting Lake shoal early and lead to an extended mouse reproduction period. He cautions, however, that his 2002 paper was qualitative and should not be used to predict the exact impact of the dam on this year’s mass mice explosion. “Compared with the economic benefits brought by the project, the mice disaster is only partial and temporary, and we can build barriers around the lake to prevent mice from migrating,” he says.

Guo believes that this year’s mouse explosion is ”a special case” related mainly to continuous drought in 2006 and to the lake’s low water level—and that it has little connection to the dam project. “Normally, the shoal of the lake would only be above the water surface in September and October, but due to the drought last year, it was exposed early, thus extending the reproduction period of the mice.”

Mice can reproduce at an astonishing rate, and having an additional month for reproduction can have huge effects on the population, Guo said. “It is possible for the mouse species in Dongting Lake to reproduce two or three times a year, and we have observed in the lab that it can even go into estrous within two days after giving birth. While the average gestation period is 20 days, lactation usually will not be finished before the next litter comes out.”

Mouse population explosions in Dongting Lake were first observed in the 1970s, but the scale of the phenomenon has never been as large as it was this year. This year’s migration represented the 11th such mass incidence, according to Wangyong Guo, an agronomist with National Agricultural Technology Promotion and Service Center.

The onslaught of mice is currently under control, though the danger still remains. On July 19, a survey by the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture indicated that the capture rate of mice is still around 30 percent, and the task of prevention remains challenging. “The number of mice living on the shoal is still large, and they will come back again once the water rises,” said the Institute’s Yong Wang.

Hujun Li is a science journalist withChina Southern Weekend. Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.

China Watch is a joint initiative of the Worldwatch Institute and Beijing-based Global Environmental Institute (GEI) and is supported by the blue moon fund.

Hujun Li – March 1, 2007 – 5:47am