Peijun Shi

• Beijing Normal University

The Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau (QTP) has an extensive frozen soil distribution and intense geological tectonic activity. Our surveys reveal that Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau earthquakes can not only damage infrastructure but also significantly impact carbon dioxide emissions. Fissures created by earthquakes expose deep, frozen soils to the air and, in turn, ac...

Strong winds have evident impacts on the environment and the society. It can affect the dispersion of air pollutants, land erosion, and damage buildings, representing a severe hazard to people and properties. However, the changes and variabilities of extreme winds are still largely unknown, especially in global high-elevation regions, e.g., the Tib...

Livestock snow disaster is one of the most serious natural disasters in pastoral areas during cold seasons, leading to substantial livestock losses over the past few decades. Accurate assessment of livestock exposure is crucial for reducing the risk of livestock snow disaster, while much less is known about the livestock exposure due to the lack of...

Although the World Health Organization has declared that the COVID‐19 pandemic no longer qualifies as a global public health emergency, it still needs to explore the response of society to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Socio‐economic status (SES) was proven to be linearly associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic, although this relationship may be more comple...

Wind erosion climatic erosivity is a measure of climatic conditions that affect wind erosion. Projecting wind erosion climatic erosivity is curcial for predicting future wind erosion risk. In this study, we employed dynamic downscaling outputs from the MPI-ESM1-2-HR model to project changes in wind erosion climatic erosivity over High Mountain Asia...

The Jishishan Ms 6.2 earthquake occurred at 23:59 on December 18, 2023 in Gansu Province, China. We conducted a field survey to assess the hazards and damages caused by the earthquake and its associated geo-activities. Subsequently, we organized a seminar to discuss the possible causes of the destruction of a prehistoric site—Lajia Settlement—dated...

Strong winds have evident impacts on the environment and the society. It can affect the dispersion of air pollutants, land erosion, damage buildings, representing a severe hazard to people and properties. However, the changes and variabilities of extreme winds are still largely unknown, especially in global high-elevation regions, e.g., the Tibetan...

Compound dry and hot extremes are proved to be the most damaging climatic stressor to wheat thereby with grave implications for food security, thus it is critical to systematically reveal their changes under unabated global warming. In this study, we comprehensively investigate the global change in compound dry and hot days (CDHD) within dynamic wh...

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.9 calls for a substantial reduction in deaths attributable to PM2.5 pollution (DAPP). However, DAPP projections vary greatly and the likelihood of meeting SDG3.9 depends on complex interactions among environmental, socio-economic, and healthcare parameters. We project potential future trends...

A decline in atmospheric oxygen concentration is projected in the 21st century given the background of global warming. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is located at a high altitude, and thus, it faces a hypoxia challenge; however, knowledge of the factors contributing to its atmospheric oxygen concentration is still lacking. Here, we conducted joint ob...

The extreme precipitation in China is greatly influenced by the East Asian summer monsoon, which can be divided into two components: the southeast monsoon (SEM) and the southwest monsoon (SWM). The Hanjiang River basin (HJB), a representative monsoon‐influenced basin in China, is alternately influenced by the southwest monsoon and southeast monsoon...

A decline in atmospheric oxygen concentration is projected in the 21st century given the background of global warming. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is located at a high altitude, and thus, it faces a hypoxia challenge; however, knowledge of the factors contributing to its atmospheric oxygen concentration is still lacking. Here, we conducted joint ob...

On 6 February 2023, two 7.8 magnitude earthquakes consecutively hit south-central Türkiye, causing great concern from all governments, the United Nations, academia, and all sectors of society. Analyses indicate that there is also a high possibility of strong earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.8 or above occurring in the western region of China in th...

On 6 February 2023, two 7.8 magnitude earthquakes consecutively hit south-central Türkiye, causing great concern from all governments, the United Nations, academia, and all sectors of society. Analyses indicate that there is also a high possibility of strong earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.8 or above occurring in the western region of China in th...

For the ecologically vulnerable Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), hypoxia is increasingly becoming an extremely important environmental risk factor that significantly affects the health of both humans and livestock in the plateau region, as well as hindering high-quality development. To focus on the problem of hypoxia, it is especially urgent to study t...

Soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental issues constraining the sustainable development of human society and economies. Soil compound erosion is the result of the alternation or interaction between two or more erosion forces. In recent years, fluctuations and extreme changes in climatic factors (air temperature, precipitation, wind sp...

Compound drought and hot extremes are proved to be the most damaging climatic stressor to wheat production thereby with grave implications for global food security, thus it is critical to systematically reveal their future changes under unabated global warming. In this study, we comprehensively investigate the global changes of compound dry and hot...

Urban expansion can impact natural habitats by changing land covers, and then threatening biodiversity. Assessing the impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats is fundamental for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity of living in harmony with nature. Here, we simulated the global urban expansion from 2016 to 2050 and assessed its i...

Within the hazard and disaster risk research field, explicitly treating carbon emissions as a hazard remains rather nascent. Applying hazard and disaster risk research perspectives to seek new insights on integrated mitigation and adaptation approaches and policy measures is equally elusive.

For the ecologically vulnerable Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), hypoxia is increasingly becoming an extremely important environmental risk factor that significantly affects the health of both humans and livestock in the plateau region, as well as hindering high-quality development. To focus on the problem of hypoxia, it is especially urgent to study t...

Land subsidence is impacting large populations in coastal Asia via relative sea-level rise (RSLR). Here we assesses these risks and possible response strategies for China, including estimates of present rates of RSLR, flood exposure and risk to 2050. In 2015, each Chinese coastal resident experienced on average RSLR of 11 to 20 mm/yr. This is 3 to...

Playas are common in many arid regions and recognized as a major source of hypersaline particles. A better understanding of wind erosion on crusted playas has significant implications for land management and pollution control practices. We hypothesized that wind erosion rates of crusted playas were complicated and controlled by the interactions bet...

As a crucial component of the climate system, snow cover plays an important role on surface energy budgets, hydrological cycles and socioeconomic development. This paper investigated the spatiotemporal patterns of snow depth across the Qinghai Plateau (QP) during 1980–2018 based on passive microwave (PMW) satellite observation and reanalysis produc...

Heat stroke is a serious heat‐related health outcome that can eventually lead to death. Due to the poor accessibility of heat stroke data, the large‐scale relationship between heat stroke and meteorological factors is still unclear. This work aims to clarify the potential relationship between meteorological variables and heat stroke, and quantify t...

Salt minerals have profound influences on soil architecture and physical properties through efflorescence and subflorescence. However, there is a lack of data on identifying the role of salt mineral types in aeolian erosion. In this study, seven types of single salt including NaCl, KCl, MgCl 2 , Na 2 SO 4 , K 2 SO 4 , MgSO 4 , and Na 2 CO 3 were ex...

Urban regions across the world have expanded rapidly in recent decades, affecting fragile natural habitats, including in drylands, and threatening the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 15, ‘life on land’. Yet, few studies have comprehensively investigated impacts of urban expansion on natural dryland habitats globally even though t...

With the rapid development of China’s economy and society, the problem of regional environmental pollution remains serious. China has issued a series of laws, policies, and measures to prevent and control environmental pollution, and the results have been remarkable. Environmental pollution management has expanded from a single pollution control to...

Typhoon disasters have caused casualties, property loss, and other negative impacts to social and economic development. Vulnerability is an important component of typhoon risk. However, little is known about the contributions of vulnerability factors and their interaction effects on typhoon-induced losses at a fine scale. Focusing on the vulnerabil...

Land degradation induced by soil erosion is widespread in semiarid regions globally and is common in the agro–pastoral ecotone of northern China. Most researchers identify soil erosion by wind and water as independent processes, and there is a lack of research regarding the relative contributions of wind and water erosion and the interactions betwe...

Within the hazard and disaster risk research field, explicitly treating carbon emissions as a hazard remains rather nascent. Applying hazard and disaster risk research perspectives to seek new insights on integrated mitigation and adaptation approaches and policy measures is equally elusive. Since China’s pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060...

Wind extremes cause many environmental and natural hazard related problems globally, particularly in heavily populated metropolitan areas. However, the underlying causes of maximum wind speed variability in urbanized regions remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated how rapid urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China, impacted daily...

It is generally believed that global warming drives an increase in heatwaves, but these changes vary regionally. Projected trends of heatwaves and comparisons between observed and projected heatwave trends are poorly understood. We selected multiple characteristics of global heatwave events, including indicators on heat‐related health impacts under...

Dry and hot extremes are major sources of risk to crop yields, and their impacts are expected to increase under future global warming. The co-occurring dry and hot conditions during crop growing seasons have amplified impacts on crop health that are even larger than the sum of their individual impacts, which may cause crop failure. In this study, w...

A regional disaster system is essentially the product of the interaction of humans and nature, which is composed of the disaster-formative environment, exposure, hazard, and disaster losses. It is a dynamic system with complex characteristics on the surface of the earth (Fig. 1) (Shi 1991).

Risk of crop yield under climate change refers to the potential changes in crop yield (mean yield, interannual yield variability, and lower extreme yield) caused by climate change.

Global warming has become a severe problem worldwide, where the average global temperature has steadily increased over recent decades, accompanied by the abnormally hot weather (IPCC 2013). Since the 1950s, heatwave events have increased in frequency, intensity, and duration and their impact on human health will also increase under enhanced global...

Droughts and heatwaves are the most detrimental climatic threats to global wheat production, their spatiotemporal coexistence (compound drought and heatwave events [CDHEs]) can cause synergistic and amplified impacts on wheat yield, which call for an improved understating of their characteristics and variations that related to wheat growth. Past de...

Typhoon disasters have caused casualties, property loss, and other negative impacts to social and economic development. Vulnerability is an important component of typhoon risk. However, little is known about the contributions of vulnerability factors and their interaction effects on typhoon-induced losses at a fine scale. Focusing on the vulnerabil...

Polygonal salt crust patches (PSCPs) in modern playas have critical hydrologic implications for arid areas, but the morphology and origin of these polygonal features are under debate. This study investigated the structure and morphological characteristics of crustal landforms in a modern playa located in the West Juyan Lake, western Inner Mongolia...

Metro systems have become high-risk entities due to the increased frequency and severity of urban flooding. Therefore, understanding the flood risk of metro systems is a prerequisite for mega-cities’ flood protection and risk management. This study proposes a method for accurately assessing the flood risk of metro systems based on an improved trape...

Global warming can have positive or negative impacts on society depending on sectors and changes in climate impact drivers, resulting in opportunities or risks. The same holds true for social-economic changes. However, past research has mostly focused on assessing risks, leaving potential opportunities under-addressed. Here, we simulated the impact...

Climate extremes pose severe threats to human health, economic stability and environmental sustainability, especially in densely populated areas. It is generally believed that global warming drives increase in frequency, intensity and duration of climate extremes, and socioeconomic exposure plays a dominant role in climate impacts. In order to prom...

The sea level rise under global climate change and coastal floods caused by extreme sea levels due to the high tide levels and storm surges have huge impacts on coastal society, economy, and natural environment. It has drawn great attention from global scientific researchers. This study examines the definitions and elements of coastal flooding in t...

Climate change affects the spatial and temporal distribution of crop yields, which can critically impair food security across scales. A number of previous studies have assessed the impact of climate change on mean crop yield and future food availability, but much less is known about potential future changes in interannual yield variability. Here, w...

As a discipline, the science of natural hazard and disaster risk aims to explain the spatial-temporal pattern, process and mechanism, emergency response and risk mitigation of natural hazards, which require a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. With the support of NSFC (Natural Science Finance of China) and CAS (Chinese Academy of Sci...

Oxygen (O 2 ) is the most abundant molecule in the atmosphere after nitrogen. Previous studies have documented that oxygen concentration remains nearly constant (20.946%) at all altitudes. Here we show for the first time that oxygen concentration varies significantly from earlier consensus and shows strong spatial and seasonal differences. Field ob...

Climate change is often described as the average changes in temperature and precipitation; however, it is the change in climate extremes determines the levels of socioeconomic impacts related to climate change. It is generally believed that global warming drives increase in frequency, intensity and duration of precipitation extremes, but these chan...

A decline in mean near‐surface (10 m) wind speed has been widely reported for many land regions over recent decades, yet the underlying cause(s) remains uncertain. This study investigates changes in near‐surface wind speed over northern China from 1961 to 2016, and analyzes the associated physical mechanisms using station observations, reanalysis p...

The oxygen concentration in near-surface air, which has been previously documented to be nearly constant (~20.946%), varies due to photosynthesis, respiration, and combustion processes, including combustion of fossil fuels. As the biggest and highest plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) hosts the largest high altitude population an...

Extreme sea levels (ESLs) due to typhoon-induced storm surge threaten the societal security of densely populated coastal China. Uncertainty in extreme value analysis (EVA) for ESL estimation has large implications for coastal communities’ adaptation to natural hazards. Here we evaluate uncertainties in ESL estimation and relevant driving factors ba...

In 2014, China initiated a nationwide poverty reduction campaign through deploying photovoltaic (PV) systems in its vast rural areas, which aims to support over 2 million households. Despite the significant socioeconomic benefits anticipated by policy-makers, it remains unclear regarding the challenges of implementing such an ambitious program in r...

Background The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.9 calls for the substantial reduction in deaths attributable to PM2.5 pollution (DAPP). However, future projections of DAPP in vary substantially, and the likelihood of meeting SDG3.9 depends on complex interactions between environmental, socio-economic, and healthcare parameters....

Landslides are major hazards that may pose serious threats to mountain communities. Even landslides in remote mountains could have non-negligible impacts on populous regions by blocking large rivers and forming dam-breached mega floods. Usually, there are slope deformations before major landslides occur, and detecting precursors such as slope movem...

There has been increasing interest in understanding climate change impacts on crop yield stability, including interannual yield variability and lower yield extremes, in addition to mean yield. In this study, we evaluated these impacts on wheat yield and investigated the contribution of changes in climate mean and variability, and their interaction,...

In this article, we recall the United Nations’ 30-year journey in disaster risk reduction strategy and framework, review the latest progress and key scientific and technological questions related to the United Nations disaster risk reduction initiatives, and summarize the framework and contents of disaster risk science research. The object of disas...

Abstract. Landslides are major hazards that may pose serious threats to mountain communities. Even landslides in remote mountains could have non-negligible impacts on populous regions by blocking large rivers and forming megafloods. Usually, there are slope deformations before major landslides occur, and detecting precursors over large mountain reg...

Our previous study found that the observed rainfall diurnal variation over Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei shows the distinct signature of the effects of pollutants. Here we used the hourly rainfall data together with satellite-based daily information of aerosols and clouds to further investigate changes in heavy rainfall and clouds associated with aerosol c...

Dust storm originates from arid and semiarid areas and could cause worldwide lasting effects along varying trajectories. As an extreme weather hazard, dust storm is usually induced by strong winds. In this paper, an aerodynamic parameter, defined as the ratio between dust storm frequency (DSF) and strong wind frequency (SWF), was calculated for qua...

Desertification is a form of land degradation principally in semi-arid and arid areas influenced by climatic and human factors. As a country plagued by extensive sandy desertification and frequent sandstorms and dust storms, China has been trying to find ways to achieve the sustainable management of desertified lands. This paper reviewed the impact...

Quantitative vulnerability relationships describing the susceptibility of socioeconomic losses in response to climate change are critical for natural disaster loss modeling and risk assessment. Modeling such vulnerability requires methods capable of handling complicated multi-factor, non-linear, and interactive relationships. Here, we compared the...

Assessing change in daily maximum wind speed and its likely causes is crucial for many applications such as wind power generation and wind disaster risk governance. Multi-decadal variability of observed near-surface daily maximum wind speed (DMWS) from 778 stations over China is analyzed for 1975 – 2016. A robust homogenization protocol using Clima...

Assessing change in daily maximum wind speed and its likely causes is crucial for many applications such as wind power generation and wind disaster risk governance. Multi-decadal variability of observed near-surface daily maximum wind speed (DMWS) from 778 stations over China is analyzed for 1975 – 2016. A robust homogenization protocol using Clima...

China experiences frequent coastal flooding, with nearly US$ 77 billion of direct economic losses and over 7,000 fatalities reported from 1989 to 2014. Flood damages are likely to grow due to climate change induced sea-level rise and increasing exposure if no further adaptation measures are taken. This paper quantifies potential damage and adaptat...

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Shrubs have a patchy distribution under natural conditions. Spacing, as a quantitative parameter used to describe shrub distribution, influences the formation of vegetated aeolian landforms and sand trapping in sandy regions. In this study, the morphology and development of shadow dunes were investigated in a wind tunnel at different wind velocitie...

Crop phenology changes are important indicators of climate change. Climate change impacts on crop phenology are generally investigated through statistical analysis of the relationship between growth period length and growth period mean temperature. However, growth periods may be either earlier or later in a given year; hence, changes in mean temper...

This chapter will expound on the theoretical system of regional disaster system (RDS). The first two sections of this chapter will focus on the discussion of the hazard theory, disaster-formative environment theory, hazard-bearing body(exposure) theory, schools of RDS theory, and the structure, function system, and characteristics of RDS.

This chapter will illustrate the measurement, statistics, and evaluation of disasters, which is the research foundation of disaster risk science. Various observation and statistics of disaster losses and damages can be gained by measuring. The scale and scope of the disaster losses can be evaluated as well.

This chapter describes the formation process of natural disasters, environmental (ecological) disasters, and human-induced disasters. Disaster formation is the process of disaster-causing and harm forming under certain disaster-formative environment, i.e., the disaster impact which is the product of the interaction of hazard, exposure, and disaster...

In this chapter, the structural system and its optimization, functional system and its optimization, pattern and consilience mode of the integrated disaster risk governance are expounded. The integrated disaster risk governance should construct the consilience mode by giving play to many aspects, such as the government, enterprise and public instit...

Despite globalization and the scale of international food trade, access to sufficient food remains a major challenge in Africa. The most effective way to mitigate food insecurity is to increase crop production. To answer the question that whether African countries have the capacity to mitigate food shortages by best cultivating practices observed o...

This chapter illustrates disaster and risk management. The disaster management includes hazard management and disaster issue management. Disaster risk management relies on the institution, policy, and scientific and technological progress for disaster reduction. Improving disaster risk management capacity is the key point to improving the utilizati...

In this chapter, the basic procedures, methods, and techniques of the disaster risk map compilation are expounded. The spatiotemporal difference pattern of the disaster risk can be objectively manifested by the technique of map or atlas. The map visualization of the regional disaster system information includes the normalization and standardization...

In this chapter, the disaster emergency management principle, system, mechanism and legal system, the emergency management modes of the representative countries, the command and mobilization of the disaster emergency response, the transfer and settlement of the disaster victims, and the disaster emergency guarantee are discussed. The disaster emerg...

In this chapter, the composition and structure of the regional disaster type, the spatial and temporal pattern of the single disaster and integrated disaster risk, i.e., the dynamic changes and spatial distribution patterns of the disaster risk and the principle, index, and method of the disaster risk regionalization, are discussed.

This chapter discusses the most important method and technique in disaster and risk science, i.e., the generalized and narrow disaster risk assessment.

In this chapter, we will elaborate on three basic terms in the field of disaster risk science: hazards, disasters, and risks. We will also discuss the classification, indexes, temporal and spatial patterns, and some other fundamental scientific problems that are related to these three terms.

The Wind erosion in arid and semi-arid areas is an important global environmental issue, and changes in wind speed trends over time play a key role in wind erosion dynamics. In a warming climate, scientists have recently observed a widespread decline in wind speed, termed "stilling". Here, we apply the Revised Wind Erosion Equation Model (RWEQ) to...

Understanding risk using quantitative risk assessment offers critical information for risk-informed reduction actions, investing in building resilience, and planning for adaptation. This study develops an event-based probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) model for livestock snow disasters in the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP) region and derives risk a...