摘要
甘肃省的自然灾害是在气候和地质构造两种因素长期作用下形成和发展的。其动力来源是青藏高原的隆起,根据现在灾害情况及2000多年的灾害记录,甘肃省的主要自然灾害类型为干旱,地震、洪水和泥石流、滑坡、水土流失、霜冻、冰雹、蝗虫、风灾和沙漠化等。
The distribution, severity and nature of natural hazards in Gansu Province, westcentral China, can be viewed as the product of a particular coincidence of tectonic and climatic evolution during the later Tertiary and the Quaternary. The most troublesome natural hazards in the past 2000 years, including drought,flood, earthquake, debris flow, landslide, accelerated soil erosion, frost, hailstorm, and locust swarm, together with the increasing general hazard of desertification, reflect the critical location of Gansu Province on the northern margins of the seismicallyactive Tibetan Front and across the highly variable sub-humid to semi-arid monsoonal precipitation gradient. The historical record, which leaves no doubt about the poverty and misery inflicted on a growing, largely peasant, population, is rich in detail and frequently graphic, making possible a series of estimates of the magnitude of great events such as earthquakes, floods and rainstorms. Any strategy for future amelioration of the effects of such natural hazards in Gansu Province will have to take account of the special geographical and geological circumstances of this dynamic region.