Evolutionary Characteristics and Frontier Scientific Issues in Flash Flood and Debris Flow Disasters Risk under Climate Change

Climate warming intensifies the interactions among Earth’s spheres and accelerates surface process dynamics，thereby exacerbating the complexity and uncertainty of flash flood and debris flow disasters. This phenomenon expands the scope and targets of disaster threats，presenting a persistent challenge and significant test for global disaster prevention，mitigation，and relief efforts in the long term. This paper systematically analyzes the emerging characteristics of flash flood and debris flow disasters under climate change，including increased frequency，enhanced intensity，pronounced chain effects，and extended risk peripheries. It identifies critical shortcomings in traditional disaster risk prevention systems regarding theoretical depth，early warning accuracy，green resilience technologies，and integration of management-development frameworks. The study proposes four frontier scientific issues for disaster risk prevention under evolving climatic conditions：response mechanisms of flash flood and debris flow to climate change，high-precision disaster prediction and risk assessment theories，watershed-scale material-energy synergistic regulation mechanisms across disaster lifecycles，and integrated risk prevention strategies coordinating mountainous disaster management with watershed ecological development. Furthermore，addressing new risk characteristics，disaster reduction demands，and technological frontiers caused by climate change，this paper recommends strengthening research on formation and evolution mechanisms of flash flood and debris flows under climate-altered disaster-prone environments，developing “theory-technology-data” driven disaster risk prediction and early warning systems，advancing engineering-natural synergistic green disaster mitigation models，and establishing multi-stakeholder collaborative risk prevention mechanisms that organically integrate disaster reduction with development objectives in small mountainous watersheds. These strategies aim to provide theoretical foundations and technical support for precision disaster risk control and high-quality development in mountainous regions under evolving climatic conditions.