ABSTRACT
The chapter reviews the literature about research on the emergency evolution and lists the typical cases of water pollution emergencies in present-day China. It makes an in-depth study of the evolution of a water pollution emergency and suggests that social factors and full-process intervention be taken as key drivers of this evolution. Based on this, the chapter analyses the major driving forces behind the evolution of a water pollution emergency , establishes an overall system of those driving forces by applying the theory of calamity, emergency management and environmental sciences, and constructs an evolutionary model of water pollution emergencies from the perspective of system analysis. Water pollution emergency management is a multi-goal task. Single-goal emergency management cannot control the evolution of a water pollution emergency in an effective way. Research into the evolution mechanism of water pollution emergencies aides the government in sending out an effective early warning and lays a solid theoretical foundation for emergency response decision-making at an early stage.
(The author is a Professor at the Emergency Management Centre at the Chinese Academy of Governance.)
