Marine Geo-Hazards in China

Yin-can YE

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780128128121
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geology & Earth Sciences

Marine Geo-Hazards in China, the first book to focus specifically on potential marine geological hazards in China, includes 19 chapters with varying focus on key issues surrounding the topic.Early chapters discuss the historical background, research progress, and geological environments in China's sea area. Next, multiple chapters present special topics on geological hazards in China's sea area, including its disaster pregnant environment, mechanisms of disaster change, the development regularity and disaster formation process, and existing or potential dangers and countermeasures. Final chapters present the latest information on the distribution, development, assessment, and risk analysis of marine geological hazards.This book is an important source of information for government and local policymakers, environmental and marine scientists, and engineers.

• Discusses the background, current research, and systematically reviews the history, major advances in the studies in the field, and demonstrates the development prospect of this subject
• Contains and summarizes the author's longstanding achievements in the field, as well as includes a wide range of researches conducted both locally and overseas
• Systematically summarizes the basic characteristics of the distribution and development of the main types of geological hazards in China seas
• Puts forward the scheme of marine geological disaster regionalization of China, and is significant for researches in other countries or regions

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces the basic concept and connotation of geological hazard, expounds on the historical background of emergence and development of marine hazard geology and its study subject and content, reviews the main progress of research in the field of marine geological hazards in detail, and forecasts the future development prospects of the subject.

Keywords

Geological hazards; Global change science; Hazard assessment; Hazard prevention and reduction; Marine geological hazards; Marine hazard geology

Chapter Outline

1. Concept and Connotation of Geological Hazards

1.1 The Basic Meaning of Hazards

1.2 Geological Hazard and Its Connotation

1.3 Geological Hazard and Hazard Geology Factor

2. Background of Emergence and Development of Marine Hazard Geology

2.1 The World Is Facing the Serious Challenges of Environmental Problems

2.2 The Great Concern of the International Community and the Governments of the World to the Global Environmental Problems

2.3 Scientific Background of Marine Hazard Geology Development

3. Object and Content of Study of Marine Hazard Geology

3.1 Types of Marine Geological Hazards

3.2 Formation Conditions and Genetic Mechanism of Marine Geological Hazards

3.3 Developmental Laws and Hazard Developing Process of Marine Geological Hazards

3.4 Zoning of Marine Hazard Geology and Risk Evaluation of Marine Geological Hazards

3.5 Hazard Assessment of Marine Geological Hazard

3.6 Monitoring, Prediction, and Prevention of Marine Geological Hazard

4. History Review and Main Progress of Study on Marine Geological Hazards

4.1 Historical Review

4.2 Main Research Progress

4.2.1 Classification of Marine Hazard Geology Factors and Marine Geological Hazards

4.2.2 Studies of Gradually Varied Marine Geological Hazards

4.2.3 Studies of Major Burst Marine Geological Hazards

4.2.4 Marine Geological Hazard Assessment and Hazard Prevention and Mitigation Study

5. Development Prospects of Marine Hazard Geology

5.1 Integrate into the “Global Change” and “Global Change Science” Concept

5.2 Strengthen Basic Theory Research of Marine Hazard Geology

5.3 Emphasize Coastal Geology Hazard Research

5.4 Promote the Scientific Problems and Key Technology Research for Marine Geological Hazard Prevention

5.5 The Extensive Application of High Technology

5.5.1 Application of Information Technology

5.5.2 Application of Sea Bottom Cable Observation Network

1. Concept and Connotation of Geological Hazards

1.1. The Basic Meaning of Hazards

The definition given to hazards by the United Nations Disaster Relief Organizations is: a concentrated accident in time and space, and during the accident the local human population and their property face serious threat and make enormous losses, and the family structure and social structure have also been enormously influenced. United Nations disaster management training materials clearly define hazard as serious damage to human life and property and activities and other social functions in natural or man-made environments, which bring widespread life, material, or environmental losses, and these losses are beyond the capability of the influenced society to resist by depending on its own resources.

Visual hazards are the catastrophic events led by natural factors or human factors; they bring harm and destruction to human life and property and resources and environment on which humans rely to survive.

According to the conditions present, hazard can be divided into two categories: natural and man-made. The kinds of natural hazard are very various, they have spatial distribution and different forms, and their formation conditions include two aspects: the first is the natural dynamic process or abnormal change of natural environment; the second is the affected objects by the hazard, that is human life and property as well as the resources and environment on which humans rely to survive and for development. During a hazard event, the former can be called the hazard-caused body, and the latter can be called the hazard-bearing body, or the victim body.

The influence of hazards to humans doesn't happen only at the moment that disastrous geological events occur; some hazards may have long-term negative effects on human beings. Therefore, the effects of hazard can be divided into the original effects, the secondary effects, and the subsequent effects. The original effects are caused by the hazard events themselves, such as during an earthquake buildings collapse, landslides bury houses, and there are mine gas explosion casualties and others caused by the ground motion. The secondary effects are caused by the hazard process that is induced by the major hazard events; they have no direct relation with the major hazard event itself, such as fire due to gas pipeline rupture during an earthquake, “water scarcity” caused by water supply system interruption due to floods, building collapse caused by the earthquake, which is induced by large karst collapse. The subsequent effects tend to be long term or even permanent, and these effects include the extinction of wildlife, channel changes caused by floods, regional or global climate change, agricultural production losses after a volcanic eruption, and terrain changes due to earthquakes, etc.

The effects of hazards to humans can be divided into direct loss and indirect loss. Direct loss (or directly influence) refers to the immediate consequences after an event, such as casualties and property losses due to building collapse in the earthquake. It is caused by the direct destruction by hazards to human beings and their property and the environment, and in most cases it can be measured by accurate and reliable monetary value. Indirect loss (or indirect influence) refers to the secondary consequences in a hazard, such as famine and disease spread brought by a hazard, a reduction in consumer purchases, output reduction from factory falling production, increased unemployment, and others. In addition, the spiritual trauma of the affected population due to scare and loss of loved ones also belongs to indirect loss of hazard. The influence of indirect loss lasts much longer than the influence of direct loss, and this effect is intangible and not easy to calculate using monetary value.

1.2. Geological Hazard and Its Connotation

The Ministry of Land and Resources of the People's Republic of China's industry standard Geological Hazard Classification defines geological hazard as: the unfortunate geological event in which earth brings harm to human life and property, the destruction of production or damage to the resources and environment on which humans rely to survive and develop under internal and external power or human engineering activities. Therefore, geological hazard refers to the disastrous geological events under various natural geological processes or human activities during the evolution of the earth's development process. The distribution and variation of geological hazard in space and time is not only subject to the natural environment but also related to human activities, and the latter is often the interaction consequence of human and the geological environment. Generally, geological hazards are the phenomena or events in which geological changes (natural, man-made, or synthetic) make the geological environment produce sudden or gradual destruction, and cause loss of human life and property. Geological hazard, meteorological hazard, and biological hazard are some of the main types of natural hazard, and they have the characteristics of sudden, multiple, mass, and gradient effect. Because geological hazard often causes serious casualties and huge economic losses, it occupies a prominent position in the category of natural hazard.

By definition of the connotation of geological hazard, geological hazard includes two aspects, dynamic conditions of hazard and hazard event consequences.

Geological hazard is caused by geological processes, including internal dynamic geological processes and external dynamic geological processes. As the scale of human activities unceasingly expands, the influence of human activities on the form the earth's surface and substance composition increases, so in the processes of the geological hazards, human activities on the earth's surface system are also included, which are artificial geological processes.

Only the geological events causing influence or damage to human life and property and the living environment are called geological hazards. If a certain geological process simply deteriorates the geological environment and there is no damage to human life and property or it does not affect the production, living environment, then it can only be described as a catastrophe. For example, collapse, landslide, and debris flow occurring in the deserted area will not cause human life and property damage, so this kind of geological event belongs to catastrophic geological events; if these collapses, landslides, and debris flows occur in the social economy developed area, it brings different degrees of casualties (or) property losses, which are called hazards.

Geological hazard is a natural phenomenon, and it also has serious impact on the production of human society and life. So it not only has natural but also social attributes. Natural attributes refers to various kinds of natural characteristics related to dynamic processes of geological hazard, such as scale, intensity, frequency, incubation conditions, and the change law of the hazard activity. Social attributes mainly refers to the human society characteristics that are closely related to the hazard activities, such as distribution of population and property, construction activities, resources development, economic development level and the ability apply hazard prevention, etc. Since the geological hazard is the result of the interaction between natural processes and social and economic activities of humans, they are unified.

Marine geological hazards are the disastrous events caused by a variety of natural geological processes and human activities in the evolution process of the earth's development; the different types of marine geologic hazards have their own laws, and are not only restricted by the earth and ocean environments, but also closely related to the human activities that develop and use the oceans. Marine geological hazard is one kind of natural disaster. It is the biggest hazard on the development of marine economy, and all countries are very concerned about it and are putting a lot of manpower, material resources, and funds into multiple aspects of research.

1.3. Geological Hazard and Hazard Geology Factor

What is hazard geology factor? What is geological hazard? There is still confusion in current academic circles, and no uniform understanding of these terms. Hazard geology factor and geological hazard are two special terms, and there are relations and differences between them, with different properties and tasks (Liu et al., 2000a).

Geological hazard for the affected object may be accidental and random. However, as a kind of geological process, most of it is normal and inevitable. The activity law of geological process as geological hazard factor is controlled by geology, natural geography, and the environment. Because human activities are involved in the geological effects, humans have obvious influence on geological hazard, but it also will play a role through the geological law. When we study the development law of geological hazard factor, we can ignore the social attributes of it, and collectively refer to the similar geological factors as “hazard geology factor.” Hazard geology factor not only includes the hazards that have occurred but also the hazards that never happen and potentially dangerous factors. In fact, geological hazard investigation and study cannot be limited to the geological hazard that has already formed; more important are those hazards that have not yet happened or potentially dangerous geological hazard factors. The study of the formation and development of geological hazards has very important meaning for forecasting, prevention, and control of geological hazards. Hazard geology factors have diverse forms, including some geological bodies (such as liquefied sand soil, diapir, fault, ancient river channel), geological processes (such as coastal erosion, turbidity, earthquake, sea level rise), and geological conditions (such as vulnerable lowlands).

2. Background of Emergence and Development of Marine Hazard Geology

Hazard geology is an important branch of geology. It is a new interdisciplinary science between disaster science and geology, and as a science, its specialized research has just started. The emergence and development of hazard geology is inseparable from the need to solve the problem of environmental hazard, and it has serious social and scientific background.

2.1. The World Is Facing the Serious Challenges of Environmental Problems

The formation of the earth has been billions of years; every hour and moment it changes by its natural development law. Human survival depends on the earth resourc...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• A Brief Introduction
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Marine Geographic and Geological Environment of China
• Chapter 3. Classification of Marine Hazard Geology Factors and Marine Geological hazards
• Chapter 4. Active Faults of Sea Area
• Chapter 5. Sea Earthquake and Earthquake Tsunami
• Chapter 6. Submarine Landslides
• Chapter 7. Coastal Erosion
• Chapter 8. Local Scour and Protection of Marine Structures
• Chapter 9. Seabed Sand Liquefaction and Evaluation
• Chapter 10. Submarine Turbidity Current
• Chapter 11. Submarine Shallow Natural Gas
• Chapter 12. Submarine Sand Waves and Sand Ridges
• Chapter 13. Special Geological Bodies
• Chapter 14. Sea Level Change, Sea Water Intrusion, and Coastal Land Subsidence
• Chapter 15. Development Laws of Geological Hazards and Hazard Geology Regionalization of China Seas
• Chapter 16. Marine Geological Hazard Prevention and Social Economic Sustainable Development
• References
• Index