Peng Cui

The 2023 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to Peng Cui for his high-level career in research and applications on debris flows and other mountain hazards, and his leadership on disaster risk reduction in adherence with the Sendai Framework.

Peng Cui merits to be awarded the Soloviev Medal 2023, for his high-level career in research on the formation mechanism, risk assessment, monitoring and early warning, prevention and control technology of debris flows and other mountain hazards. Peng Cui has a very large number of publications, citations, international projects and initiatives that he has coordinated. He has developed an intensive Editorial activity. His research has been applied in major disaster mitigation in China and around the world, and has been highly recognized by communities, winning 18 international, national, and provincial science and technology awards. For over 20 years of serving as director-general and following chairman of the scientific committee of the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE), he has shown great leadership in the frontier of mountain hazard research and advanced the development of disaster risk science.

The sound and sustained efforts of Peng Cui to advance research on disaster risk, along with its application for disaster risk management for the benefit of society, has made him an internationally recognised and respectable figure. His international leadership has been clearly demonstrated with the number of top-level positions in international scientific organizations that he has held during his career, and his contributions championing important initiatives. In this vein, Peng Cui launched Silk Road Disaster Risk (SiDRR), an international research program on disaster risk reduction established in adherence with and to support the Sendai Framework, and highly valued and recognised by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. He also co-founded the Alliance of International Science Organizations on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2019 with 36 international institutions and universities. It aims to enhance education, young professional training, international communication, and provide scientific instructions on disaster risk reduction and socioeconomic development. Furthermore, he established the Sino-Italian Laboratory on Geological and Hydrological Hazards to reduce the impact of landslides on infrastructure and population in the mountainous region.

He has been enthusiastically inserted in teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate level in China and in the international sphere and has contributed to the formation of the new generation of natural hazards scientists and practitioners as a supervisor and mentor of one hundred graduate and postdoctoral students.