Comparative Study on International Research Hotspots and National-Level Policy Keywords of Dynamic Disaster Monitoring and Early Warning in China (2000–2021)

Abstract

For more than 20 years, disaster dynamic monitoring and early warning have achieved orderly and sustainable development in China, forming a systematic academic research system and top-down policy design, which are inseparable from the research of China’s scientific community and the promotion of government departments. In the past, most of the research on dynamic disaster monitoring and early warning focused on specific research in a certain field, scene, and discipline, while a few studies focused on research review or policy analysis, and few studies combined macro and meso research reviews in academia with national policy analysis for comparative analysis. It is necessary and urgent to explore the interaction between scholars’ research and policy deployment, which can bring theoretical contributions and policy references to the top-down design, implementation promotion, and academic research of China’s dynamic disaster monitoring and early warning. Based on 608 international research articles on dynamic disaster monitoring and early warning published by Chinese scholars from 2000–2021 and 187 national policy documents published during this period, this paper conducts a comparative analysis between the knowledge maps of international research hotspots and the co-occurrence maps of policy keywords on dynamic disaster monitoring and early warning. The research shows that in the stage of initial development (2000–2007), international research articles are few and focused, and research hotspots are somewhat alienated from policy keywords. In the stage of rising development (2008–2015), after the Wenchuan earthquake, research hotspots are closely related to policy keywords, mainly in the fields of geology, engineering disasters, meteorological disasters, natural disasters, etc. Meanwhile, research hotspots also focus on cutting-edge technologies and theories, while national-level policy keywords focus more on overall governance and macro promotion, but the two are gradually closely integrated. In the stage of rapid development (2016–2021), with the continuous attention and policy promotion of the national government, the establishment of the Ministry of Emergency Management, and the gradual establishment and improvement of the disaster early warning and monitoring system, research hotspots and policy keywords are integrated and overlapped with each other, realizing the organic linkage and mutual promotion between academic research and political deployment. The motivation, innovation, integration, and transformation of dynamic disaster monitoring and early warning are promoted by both policy and academic research. The institutions that issue policies at the national level include the State Council and relevant departments, the Ministry of Emergency Management, the Ministry of Water Resources, and other national ministries and commissions. The leading affiliated institutions of scholars’ international research include China University of Mining and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University, Shandong University of Science and Technology, and other institutions. The disciplines involved are mainly multidisciplinary geosciences, environmental sciences, electrical and electronic engineering, remote sensing, etc. It is worth noting that in the past two to three years, research and policies focusing on COVID-19, public health, epidemic prevention, environmental governance, and emergency management have gradually increased.