Geo-hazards with characteristics and prevention measures along the coastal regions of China.

摘要

China has more than 18,000 km long coastline. Along the coastline, there are various configurations of topography, geomorphology, and geology condition. In the coastal regions, geological disasters, including seawater intrusion, coast scouring, land subsidence, karst collapse, soil erosion, collapse-landslide-debris flow (CLDF), and human activity-induced disasters, occur frequently. All of these disasters have their own forming causes, characteristics, and distribution regions. Seawater intrusion and coast scouring only occur in the coastal regions while the others occur in both coastal regions and in-land regions. Land subsidence occurring in the coastal region is of larger scale and entails greater economic loss than that occurring in the in-land region. For the other disasters, although the scale of disaster in the coastal regions is smaller than that happened in the in-land regions, the economic loss in the former case is greater than that in the latter. This is because populations are dense and economy is developed along the coastal regions of China. To mitigate the disasters and reduce the economic loss, countermeasures are discussed.