These two earthquake scenario narratives are a product of an international collaboration through the PAGER-O project (Pan-participatory Assessment and Governance of Earthquake Risks in the Ordos Area) funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of the UK. This programme aimed to combine the strengths of physical and social sciences to increase resilience and reduce risks from multi-hazards in earthquake-prone regions in China.

The scenario is supported by a dozen technical papers in academic journals that document the basis for the hypothetical but plausible earthquake, on which the scenario is built, and which explain the basis for calculations of vulnerabilities and risks to the city of Weinan and its surrounding areas, if such an earthquake were to occur. These two audience-specific publications focus on what the impacts might be on the Weinan area in the event of such, aiming to facilitate bridging the gap between sciences and policies to reduce earthquake risk. The first audience is government staff, while the second is the general public. The aim of the two different narratives is to facilitate bridging the top-down and the bottom-up approaches to improving earthquake safety, preparedness and resilience.

We only provide the English versions of the narratives as the project is exploring ways for the Chinese versions to be published as books in Mainland China.