Guest Editorial: Technology Developments in Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Engineering

摘要

Disasters are adverse or unfortunate events which may have a profound effect on society and the nation. They may occur due to natural causes such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods or typhoons or due to man-made causes such as blasts, missile attacks or fire. Generally, during a large-scale disaster, civil and hydraulic infrastructures like buildings, bridges, dams, roads, water supply projects, coastal structures, etc. may severely be affected, causing immense inconvenience to people and disrupting routine life. To prevent and mitigate disasters, engineers and scholars in the relevant research fields play a crucial role. Advanced technologies in disaster prevention and mitigation have been attracting enormous research efforts around the world, and lots of new technologies have been developed to cope with engineering problems encountered with especially in the construction and maintenance of large-scale infrastructures in the past decades.