Abstract:

Emergency responses for natural disaster relief is a critical approach to reduce natural disaster risks,also it is one of the governments important responsibilities.It had been incorporated into the National Emergency Plan for Natural Disaster Relief of China since the year of 2005.After collecting and sorting information of natural disaster emergency responses which were launched during 2005-2010,calculating the response frequency,and making comparison with disaster damages and losses information,the temporal variation characteristics of emergency responses had been analyzed and discussed.The main conclusions were as follows.(1) During 2005-2010,altogether 235 national emergency responses were launched targeting all 130 major disasters.Among them,the ratio between highgrade responsesgrade I or IIfor catastrophic disasters and lowgrade responsesgrade III and IVfor normal major disasters was matching the disaster occurrence frequency,complying with the fundamental law of the major disaster occurrence in China.(2) In recent years,the launched emergency responses were mainly caused by floods,typhoons,and their induced landslides and mudslides,which reflected that the severest and most frequent occurrence period was from June to September,the main flooding season,extremely in July.The key occurrence period of drought disaster was spring,summer and autumn seasons,that of low temperature and snow disaster was winterspring season,and that of heavy wind and hail diaster was from the end of spring to the beginning of summer season,matching the monsoon climate characteristics and occurrence time of metrological disasters in China.(3) The temporal variation characteristics of emergency responses showed development of China and changes in dealing with natural disaster relief.The number of people evacuated and resettled was the indicator that necessitated the initiation of the greatest number of emergency responses.It reflected the importance that China had attached to natural disaster relief and the new paradigm of taking prevention as first priority in emergency management in recent years.(4) The study on emergency response characteristics manifested that measures for disaster relief and reduction should be suited to different conditions in terms of time,location as well as types of natural hazards,and research on disaster risk assessment and vulnerability mechanism during the process of disaster evolvement should be expedited