LAUSR

This article presents a comprehensive review of China’s policy system for the management of natural hazard-induced disasters from 1949 to 2016 through a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 5472 policy documents on such disasters. It identifies four phases of China’s evolving disaster management system, which focused on agriculture, economic development, government and professional capacity building, and disaster governance, respectively. Characteristics of policies and contributing factors of policy change in each of the four phases are discussed in depth. This article provides a quantitative foundation for understanding the dynamic policy change of the disaster management system in China with a particular emphasis on the governance capacity and may serve as a basis for exploring the potential pathways of transformation according to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.