New Progress in the Digital Platform Empowering China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Disaster Management
Publisher:
time: 2025-07-29
The CPJRC research group led by Prof. Juanle Wang has made new progress in the digital platform empowering China-Pakistan Economic Corridor disaster management. The relevant research results were recently published online in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science.
As a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an important economic link connecting China and Pakistan. However, the frequent occurrence of natural disasters in this region (such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, etc.), coupled with the weak disaster management system and serious data fragmentation in Pakistan, seriously threatens the regional sustainable development. While digital technologies and big data offer new solutions for disaster management, imbalanced digital resources and inadequate data management systems hinder their full potential.
This study proposed the Digital CPEC platform, an open technology solution (using, for example, Python, PostgreSQL, MapServer) developed to share disaster-related open data in a fully digital format, thereby enhancing data accessibility and lowering economic and technical barriers. The platform offers a scalable and replicable model for strengthening disaster resilience in underdeveloped and transboundary regions worldwide, driving innovation in policy assurance, data integration, software support, and customized deployment. To ensure data integrity and security, four disaster management standards and a structured data integration framework were established, consolidating resources from seven thematic data corridors spanning natural hazard, ecological environment, and socioeconomic fields. Additionally, 18 metadata indicators and 38 identifiers were introduced into the metadata schema to enhance data quality and usability, alongside specialized analytical tools (for example, Echarts, area calculation) that improve user interaction.
This platform’s practical applications in pre-disaster risk monitoring, in-disaster response, and post-disaster recovery assessment demonstrate its strong knowledge-driven policy insights for environmental sustainability throughout the entire disaster management cycle at both the regional and national levels. The platform has supported the forest ecological changes and driving factor analyses in the upper Indus River Basin. By combining remote sensing and meteorological data, it reveals the differences in regional ecological restoration and disturbance mechanisms, providing a scientific basis for forest management and ecological restoration policies. The platform has also supported the ecological and environmental assessment in the lower Indus River Basin. Using deep learning models and landscape ecological health evaluation tools, it reveals the positive impact of floods on the ecosystem, thus facilitating the development of flood ecological benefit-oriented land use and disaster emergency integration policies, and promoting regional ecological sustainable development.
The "Digital CPEC Platform" constructed in this study has achieved multiple innovative breakthroughs at the conceptual, technical, and institutional levels. Through its open-source architecture and standardized data governance, it has significantly reduced technical barriers and solved the problem of cross - border data fragmentation. In the future, the platform will further expand intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital twins to improve the accuracy of disaster prediction and response efficiency. Simultaneously, it will strengthen user-contributed data mechanisms and collaborative research on transnational policies, promoting the in-depth application of digital platforms in global sustainable development and disaster governance.
The research of these related results was funded by CPJRC.
Paper Information:
Title:
Wang Juanle, Bu Kun, Li Congrong, Yuan Yuelei, Yan Xinrong, Xuchen, Sajjad Meer Muhammad, Hao Lina, Liu Jiazhuo, Min Xiaodong. Digital Platform Empowering China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Disaster Management: Enhancing Data Integration, Resilience, and Policy Innovation. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 16, 376–391 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-025-00644-3
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-025-00644-3
Homepage interface of the digital China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) platform
