Page 167 - JCAU-7-2

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

VIEWPOINT
Mitigating risks of natural and human-made

disasters caused by excessive urbanization

Jiahong Guo, Lidan Yang, and Shixiong Cao*
Institute of Minority Economics, School of Economics, Minzu University of China, Beijing, China

Abstract

Urbanization, a significant outcome of the Industrial Revolution, has led to the
excessive concentration of industries and populations in geologically vulnerable
areas, such as low-lying coastal and riverside zones. This geographic clustering
amplifies the risk of disasters, such as floods. Geological and archeological evidence
highlights a long history of natural disasters, such as severe flooding often associated
with earthquakes and other geological events. To address these risks, governments
must reassess the vulnerability of densely populated areas and prioritize the
implementation of risk reduction and mitigation measures. One potential strategy
involves relocating key industries to safer locations, such as higher elevations less
prone to flooding, while simultaneously developing measures to protect urban
populations from natural disasters.
*Corresponding author:
Shixiong Cao
(shixiongcao@126.com) Keywords: Urbanization; Climate change; Natural disasters; Social development; Welfare
policy
Citation: Guo, J., Yang, L., &
Cao, S. (2025). Mitigating risks of
natural and human-made disasters
caused by excessive urbanization.
Journa of Chinese Architecture and 1. Introduction
Urbanism, 7(2): 5320.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.5320 Urbanization has been an important driving force for economic and social development,
Received: October 21, 2024 playing a particularly significant role in regional economic growth (Cai et al., 2019). The
concentration of population in urban areas has facilitated the development of industrial
Revised: November 9, 2024
agglomerations, leveraging the synergy between industries and the employment
Accepted: December 9, 2024 opportunities created by a large urban population. This synergy fosters the development
Published online: January 6, 2025 of economies of scale and enhances human well-being by improving access to jobs,
medical services, and education, thereby advancing both economic productivity and the
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s).
This is an open-access article quality of life for urban residents (da Silva et al., 2017). Consequently, urbanization has
distributed under the terms of the attracted extensive attention in global planning initiatives, such as the United Nations’
Creative Commons Attribution- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda) and
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all various international collaborative efforts (Elmqvist et al., 2019). However, the rapid and
non-commercial use, distribution, often uncontrolled expansion of urban areas has brought significant challenges, such as
and reproduction in any medium, environmental degradation and ecological imbalances, which have emerged as pressing
provided the original work is
properly cited. global challenges (Bloomberg, 2015; Uttara et al., 2012). As a result, identifying pathways
to safer and more sustainable urbanization has become an urgent imperative.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with According to the United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2024
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional (https://population.un.org/wpp/), while the world’s population is projected to peak
affiliations. within this century, one-quarter of the global population already resides in countries and

Volume 7 Issue 2 (2025) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.5320