The frequent natural disasters in recent years have caused serious economic loss and threatened human life, becoming a global issue of great concern to governments and scientists. According to the 2019 Global Natural Disaster Assessment Report, 320 major natural disasters occurred globally on average each year from 1989 to 2019, of which floods and storms had the highest proportion of more than 60%. It has been a consensus in the international community to gain a scientific understanding toward the patterns of occurrence and development of natural disasters, to improve the awareness and knowledge of disaster prevention and mitigation, and to reduce the harm caused by natural disasters to human society. China is among the countries seriously affected by natural disasters. Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Government have attached great importance to the prevention and control of natural disasters, with the achievements in disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief being universally acknowledged.

Since 2014, Journal of Natural Disasters, Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Dynamics, Chinese Journal of Atmospheric Sciences and Acta Meteorologica Sinica have been successively selected for the Journal Translation Project (JTP, http://jtp.cnki.net/bilingual). As of 2020, 3 918 articles from these journals have been included in JTP and published in both Chinese and English, which has enhanced the international influence of these journals. To further promote the international exchange of China’s academic achievements in natural disaster research and the international dissemination of these journals, we selected 147 excellent Chinese articles on natural disaster research. This collection of articles involves the latest findings in natural disaster research supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key R&D Program of China and National Major Scientific Research Program of China. These articles involve the disaster examples such as 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake, 4.25 Nepal earthquake, Typhoon Maria and Typhoon Rammasun and comprehensively demonstrate the successful experience and countermeasures in dealing with major natural disasters in China. This book is a compilation of the English version of the selected Chinese articles and includes six chapters, with detailed introduction of the formation mechanisms, risk assessment, monitoring and warning, and disaster mitigation measures of six types of natural disasters: earthquake, drought, flood, typhoon, landslide and debris flow. It provides scientific and technical support for understanding the patterns of disaster occurrence, predicting the future disasters, and mitigating the harm caused by natural disasters, which has practical significance for disaster prevention and mitigation worldwide. Therefore, this book can be used as a reference for researchers, technicians, teachers and students focusing on prevention and mitigation of natural disasters.

Disaster prevention, mitigation, resilience, and relief are eternal topics for human survival and development since many countries and regions in the world still face serious natural disasters. As the editor-in-chief, I believe this book will provide new ideas and methods for disaster prevention, mitigation and emergency management in countries all over the world and serve as a reference and basis for the development of policies by government departments. This book will be of important academic value and practical significance.

Editor-in-chief: LIU Jingnan