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Droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity as the global climate changes. Risk assessment for agricultural drought disasters is an important approach for disaster prevention and mitigation. Based on the formation mechanism of natural disaster risk, the index system model of agricultural drought risk assessment in North China was constructed, and the robustness of the established risk assessment model was tested by using the internal test method. Then based on the characteristics of agricultural drought risk formation in North China, the paper proposes corresponding risk prevention recommendations. The conclusions were as follows: when adjusting the indices and methods in the risk assessment model, the range of changes in the agricultural drought risk ranking for each city was mostly 1-2.5 places, and the model was relatively robust. With the exception of Beijing and Tianjin, which had the highest disaster prevention and mitigation capacity, central and northern China had the highest agricultural drought risk, which was previously linked to the high risk and vulnerability of these regions. The agricultural drought risk in northern Henan and southern Shandong is low, mainly due to the low risk. The 34 cities in North China can be divided into 6 agricultural drought risk clusters, which are not dispersed in space and cross-city distribution, and have good aggregation. Cluster 4, located in the northernmost mountainous areas, has the highest risk of drought, which is associated with high environmental vulnerability and low capacity for disaster prevention and mitigation, so agricultural areas should be reduced and agricultural input should be increased. Clusters 2, 5 and 6, located in the central and southern regions, have higher grain acreage and yields due to drought, so agricultural drought risk can be further reduced by increasing agricultural input and improving irrigation guarantee rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: On 5th September 2022, an Ms 6.8 earthquake struck the Luding County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. This earthquake triggered extensive geological hazards in the moun‐ tainous area, leading to serious casualties. Rapidly and accurately obtaining the spatial distribution of the in‐ duced geological hazards is crucial for emergency decision-making and rescue after an earthquake. Methods: Based on the global coseismic landslide database and deep learning algorithm, this paper built a near real-time prediction model of spatial distribution probability of coseismic landslides, and obtained the prediction results of the geological hazards induced by the Luding earthquake within 2 hours after the event. Through the post-earthquake unmanned aerial vehicle （UAV） and satellite remote sensing images, ma‐ chine learning and deep learning algorithms were used to realize the automated recognition of large-scale geological hazards. A total of 3 633 earthquake-induced landslides with an area of 13.78 km2 were interpreted. Finally, the model was optimized by integrating these landslide data, and the prediction results of coseismic landslides with a broader area and higher accuracy were achieved. Results: The results show that the coseis‐ mic landslide prediction model can realize a rapid capture of spatial distribution of post-earthquake geologi‐ cal hazards, filling the blank period before the acquisition of post-earthquake remote sensing images and providing support for post-disaster emergency rescue. Conclusions: Intelligent identification technologies based on UAV and satellite remote sensing images are effective means to rapidly obtain the vital informa‐ tion of large-scale geological hazards. The achievements obtained in this paper played an important role in the emergency rescue after the Luding earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 8th symposium on fluid geoscience, mineral resources and environmental disasters reflects the formation and evolution of geological fluids, the enrichment and distribution of mineral resources, and the research progress and development trend of environmental disasters in recent years. The relevant papers of the 8th symposium regarding fluid geoscience, mineral resources and environmental disasters from 6 aspects, including the deep geological processes and mineral resources, the physicochemical techniques of geological fluid research, the fluid geochemical characteristics and seismicity, the occurrence characteristics and development status of geothermal resources, the accumulation characteristics, controlling factors and enrichment rules of geological resources, the fluid geoscience and geographical natural environment, were summarized. The results show that ① the generation and evolution mechanism, enrichment and migration mechanism of oil, gas and mineral resources, and the development of exploration and development technology are still the focus of the current research in the field of fluid geoscience, and the research content also pays more attention to the history and mechanism of resource generation and evolution; ② it is the current main trend to adopt diversified and more accurate new technologies to explore new fields with more complicated geological conditions, deeper burial and more difficult exploration and exploitation; ③ at present, the uncertainty of China's extreme natural disaster risk is affected by many natural, economic and social factors, and it shows an increasing trend; destructive earthquakes are in a period of frequent occurrence, and the sudden, abnormal and complex characteristics of natural disasters are also showing an increasing trend, therefore, it is urgent to improve China's natural disaster prevention and control capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological geology is an emerging interdisciplinary subject, studying the interaction, coordination and balance between geological, ecological and disaster environments driven by multi-sphere mutual feedback effects and human activities on the earth surface. Under the general background of ecological civilization construction in China, the ecological geological environment system is composed by ecological environmental system, geological environmental system and geo-hazard environmental system, which are intercoupling and interacting. The core issue of ecological geology lies in the balance of the eco-geological environmental system, and the prevention and control of disasters. Therefore, this paper proposes four major research frontiers of ecological geology and the eco-geological environmental system: (1) The structure and interaction mechanism of the eco-geological environmental system; (2) The mechanism and pattern of the dynamic balance of the eco-geological environmental system; (3) The symbiotic mutual feedback mechanism and progressive evolution process of ecological damages-soil and water disasters-geological disasters; (4) The dynamic detection, monitoring and early warning, as well as management and mitigation of eco-geological environment risks. The above four components are progressively and interdependently integrated to address the core issue of ecological geology. The proceeding of ecological geology should comprehend the connotation of ecology priority and green development, focus on eco-geological safety and disaster environment system issues, and implement the strategic principle of “firstly strengthening the ecological barrier, and then accelerating high-quality development, finally leading the world pattern”, thereby contributing to scientific and technical supports for the decision and implementation of national strategies such as ecological protection and construction of beautiful China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultivation of apples plays an important role in China's fruit production. Climate change has brought about more frequent and severe drought and waterlogging disasters, which have negatively impacted apple yield quantity and quality. Through the summary of previous research studies done on the impact of drought and waterlogging disasters and its effect on apple production, methods for disaster prevention and mitigation can be provided to reduce the impact of these disasters to the industry. In this paper, the methods of classification and systematic analysis combined with studying actual disaster cases were used to review the latest research into the effects of droughts and waterlogging disasters on apple production in China and identify the next steps for future research and development into this subject. The intensity and impacts of droughts and waterlogging disasters on apple production are determined by weather, regional climate, topography, soil composition, and several other factors. Adopting the morphological indicators to study these disasters, most existing research into this area only focuses on meteorological factors and rarely consider agrometeorological factors such as soil composition, current crop conditions, and more. The distribution of apple drought disasters in China decreases from north to south. The prevention measures of apple drought and waterlogging included irrigation, strengthening orchard soil management, implementing the integration of soil and fertilizer, etc. More of the current research done into this subject takes place in the Northern parts of China and often lack the necessary information to be put into use in disaster monitoring and early warning applications. In the future, research into apple droughts and waterlogging disasters should focus on increasing in orchard observation data collection, constructing a disaster risk monitoring and early warning model, and implementing the model into apple growing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water security is an integrated concept of multiple dimensions, including water resource utilization, water eco-environmental protection, water disaster prevention among others. In this paper, an evaluation indicator system of water security are constructed, focusing on five dimensions: water quantity, water quality, sustainability, affordability, and flood security. It is based on a summary and discussion of the definition, connotation, and evaluation of water security dimensions. We provide increased understanding of applicability and usefulness of water security evaluation systems, thereby avoiding content duplication or overlaps between different dimensions and promoting the accuracy of problem diagnosis. In doing so, we used a multi-expert decision-making method to quantify indicators weight and to standardize data. Compared with evaluating the water quantity security using indicators of water resources endowment alone, this evaluation system implies concepts of water demand and sustainable security that included in resource security, which is capable of analyzing actual reasons for water shortage. Affordability, which is seldom considered in previous studies, is supplemented to ensure system integrity of water security assessment. Finally, a case study of water security evaluation of China is carried out with cluster analysis. The main water security problems in each region of China were diagnosed well, which are in line with the current situation of China. This test indicates that the evaluation system is both reliable and practically applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]