Yang Zhang

Yang Zhang's research focuses on disasters and natural hazards, with expertise in Disaster Recovery, Hazard Mitigation, Flood Risk, and Disaster Analytics. His work seeks to improve understanding of how communities prepare for, recover from, and mitigate against natural hazards, while advancing evidence-based approaches to disaster policy and practice.

His research on Disaster Recovery examines the physical, social, economic, and institutionalprocesses that shape post-disaster recovery. In Hazard Mitigation, he studies how mitigation policies are adopted, implemented, and diffused, and the factors that facilitate or hinder these efforts. In the area of Flood Risk, he investigates the relationship between scientific knowledge and public decision-making. His work focuses on knowledge co-production, the social mediation of expert knowledge, and the role of flood hazard modeling and mapping in shaping flood risk governance and policy. Methodologically, his research is grounded in Disaster Analytics, which integrates computational modeling, statistical analysis, spatial reasoning, and the use of both qualitative and quantitative data. Through these approaches, he generates rigorous and cross-validated empirical evidence to support disaster policy development.

His work has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of Planning History, Natural Hazards Review, Disasters, and Sustainable Cities and Society, among others. His research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Virginia Sea Grant, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Natural Hazards Center.

He earned degrees from Peking University and Texas A&M University.

Areas of Expertise:

• Disaster Recovery
• Hazard Mitigation
• Flood Risk
• Disaster Analytics