I. Peer Review Process

The peer review system is adopted by the The Chinese Journal of Geological Hazards and Control for the purpose of maintaining high standards in the academic quality of the journal. The manuscript review process is mainly composed of three procedures: the preliminary review by the Editorial Office, the external review by the reviewers and the final review by the Editorial Board (chief editor), namely the "Three-Examination System". Single anonymized review is carried out in the peer review, i.e. any information of peer reviewers shall not/isn’t disclosed to the authors during the manuscript review.

II. Requirements for Articles

1. Authorship

Authorship of a scientific article is a very serious matter. It is necessary to ensure that each author has a substantial academic contribution to the article and agrees with the authorship and the order in which it appears.

(1) Important contributors to the conceptions, ideas, topics, designs of research and the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data.

(2) Writers of an article or revisers of its key content.

(3) The persons who make a comprehensive review and check on the final published article, and finalize the article.

(4) The persons who agree to be liable and responsible for all aspects of the research, and warrant to investigate and solve problems arising from the accuracy or scientific research integrity in any part of the article.

Any persons who do not meet all the four conditions are not eligible for authorship, but may be thanked in the "Acknowledgements" if they agree to do so.

2. Originality

The authors warrant that the content of an article is original, not published previously at home and abroad, and free from plagiarism and forgery; that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and that it is free from infringement relating to intellectual property rights and other copyrights. The works and/or words of others used in the article must be cited as references.

III. Responsibilities and Duties of Editors

To maintain the fairness, rationality, and effectiveness of the peer review process, the journal editors must comply with the following codes of academic ethics:

(1) The editors shall treat each manuscript in a fair, impartial and timely manner, and shall only make decisions on acceptance or rejection of an articlebased on its own content, such as its scientific nature, innovation and readability, and its matching degree with the applicable scope of the journal.

(2) No editors shall be biased against the author's affiliation, gender, professional title, academic honor, etc.

(3) The editors shall comply with the principle of confidentiality. On the one hand, they shall keep the authors’ research content confidential; on the other hand, they shall keep confidential the peer reviewers’ information and comments.

(4) No editors shall be driven by interests to interfere with the peer review process of external experts and they shall procure the peer experts to give independent review recommendations.

(5) For the reviewers recommended by the authors, the editors shall fully review whether their basic information is accurate, whether their academic background is consistent with the research background of the article, whether there is a conflict of interest with the authors, and then decide prudently whether the article needs to be submitted to the recommended experts; if the authors give sufficient reasons to request avoidance of any experts, the authors’ request shall be respected as far as possible.

(6) The editors shall avoid selecting experts who have conflicts of interest with the authors (e.g. project team members, colleagues, fellow apprentices, relatives, etc.) to review their manuscripts.

(7) The editors shall consciously avoid any review of manuscripts that conflict with their own interests (such as: article writing, project research in which they have participated or having a fellow apprentice relationship or kinship with their authors).

IV. Responsibilities and Duties of Reviewers

In the peer review process, the reviewers shall comply with the following ethical codes:

(1) Upon receipt of the invitation, the reviewers shall first understand the journal's orientation and review requirements. They shall be obligated to review whether their professional knowledge and research direction match the manuscript to be reviewed. If not, they shall inform the editors/the Editorial Board members in a timely and clear manner, and suggest replacement of the reviewers.

(2) The reviewers shall review their own schedule and confirm whether they can submit their comments within the stipulated time. If not, the editors shall be informed in time or an acceptable review timeline may be negotiated with the editor.

(3) The reviewers shall maintain academic integrity and respect academic freedom in review, apply their professional knowledge and excellent judgment ability to evaluate the merits and demerits of the manuscript and its contents on an honest, objective and fair basis, and give reasonable and constructive evaluation comments in a timely manner. It is required to avoid unsubstantiated or malicious criticism to others and unfair content, and avoid making unfounded accusations.

(4) The reviewers shall consider any possible interest relationships and identify whether there is a potential conflict of interest with the manuscript under review. If so, they shall give a notice to the editors in a timely manner, stating all relevant interest relationships and avoiding conflicts of interest. If they are unable to determine whether certain relationships constitute a conflict of interest that may affect the impartial review of the manuscript, the editors shall be consulted for further advice.

(5) The reviewers shall abide by the confidentiality principle of peer review and avoid disclosing the contents and relevant information of the manuscript to any irrelevant persons, whether during or after the review.

(6) The reviewers shall not be influenced by the source of the manuscript, the authors’ country, organization, race, religion, political beliefs, gender or other external factors, and shall not be driven by any commercial interests.

(7) Without the permission of the Editorial Board of the journal, the reviewers are not allowed to transfer any articles to others (colleagues, students, etc.) for review.

(8) During the process of reviewing manuscripts, the reviewers shall check whether there is any academic misconduct such as duplicate publication, plagiarism, tampering, forgery, etc. If there is any suspicion of such misconduct, they shall inform the editors in a timely manner and provide relevant evidential information.

(9) The reviewers can only recommend the addition of important references related to the research content of the article, and shall not recommend the authors to cite the articles of themselves or their colleagues only for the purpose of increasing the citation frequency or exposure.

(10) After submitting the review comments, the reviewers shall contact the editors in time if they obtain any relevant information sufficient to influence the initial feedback or suggestions. After the article is published, if they identify any problems or potential conflicts of interest not found during the previous review process, the Editorial Board shall be informed in a timely manner.

V.Plagiarism

The Chinese Journal of Geological Hazards and Control uses the duplicate checking software "paper similarity detection system" provided by Wanfang Database service platform to detect the repetition rate of the submitted content. If the software raises any questions, we will conduct some investigations. If plagiarism is found after submission, the manuscript will be rejected; If plagiarism is found after publication, we may issue a notice of correction or withdrawal of relevant papers.

[References]

China Association of Science and Technology. Codes of Ethics for Publication in Scientific and Technological Journals [J]. Beijing: China Science & Technology Press, 2019.