Lessons learned from protective measures associated with the 2010 Zhouqu debris flow disaster in China

G. Wang ()

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2013, vol. 69, issue 3, 1835-1847

Abstract: On August 7 and 8, 2010, a catastrophic debris flow disaster occurred in Zhouqu County in northwestern China’s Gansu Province. The large-scale debris flow event destroyed more than 200 buildings, killing approximately 1,700 people. Field investigations showed that the debris flow disaster was not only a natural hazard but also anthropogenic. First, the partial implemented check dams had not formed an integral blocking system to resist large events. Second, poor-quality workmanship contributed to the breakage of check dams. Third, disorderly placement of houses and buildings on the fan structure rendered the cross-sectional area of drainage channel too small to accommodate such a large event. The lessons learned from these hazards may be valuable for improving protective measures against these types of very large debris flow events in northwestern China in the future. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Keywords: Drainage channel; Check dam; Debris flow; Zhouqu County; Impact force (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-013-0772-1 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:69:y:2013:i:3:p:1835-1847

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-013-0772-1

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().