中山大学自然灾害研究中心依托原地球与环境科学学院成立于1992年，首任中心主任为气象学家梁必骐教授。2007年9月学校再次认定并重组自然灾害研究中心，直属学校一级研究中心，挂靠地理科学与规划学院，由学院院长、校长助理保继刚教授兼任中心主任。

中心整合全校优质科研资源，主要从事自然灾害监测预警、预测预报、风险评估、灾害防御和应急管理的科学研究、技术开发与高层次人才培养。现有三个主要研究方向和一个技术支撑平台，包括水灾害防御与应急管理、气象灾害预警预报、地质灾害监测及风险评估、基于GIS遥感的自然灾害研究与开发支撑平台，中心还拥有水灾害和水利信息化联合实验室和中小尺度暴雨实验室。

中心自成立以来，承担了一批国家和省部级研究课题以及为地方经济建设服务的项目，取得了一批高水平研究成果，其中在元胞自动机与地理模拟研究、新一代流域洪水预报方法、分布式物理水文模型、多普勒雷达降雨定量估算技术、水库优化调度、泥石流危险度和风险评价、华南地区台风数值模拟等方面达到国内领先或国际先进水平，开发的广州市三防决策支持系统、广州市多普勒雷达流域降雨定量预报系统、惠州市水资源管理信息系统、数值天气预报业务系统等在实际应用中发挥了较大作用，已成为华南地区自然灾害教学、研究、咨询与系统开发的重要力量。

The Natural Disaster Research Center(NDRC) was founded in 1992 who was affiliated to the former college of Earth and Environmental Sciences with Professor Biqi Liang, the famous meteorologist as its first director. In 2007 NDRC was regrouped by Sun Yat-sen University as a university affiliated center under the auspice of the School of Geographical Sciences and Planning with the Dean, Professor Jigang Bao as the director.

Integrated the university wide sources, the NDRC focus its research on the monitoring, warning, forecasting of natural disasters, risk assessment, disaster prevention and emergency management. Currently it has three research groups and one platform, including water disaster warning and emergency management group，meteorological disaster monitoring and warning group, geological disaster monitoring and risk management group, and natural disaster R&D platform based on GIS/RS. The Center also has two laboratories including the Joint Lab of Water Disaster & Hydroinformatics and the Laboratory of Mesoscale Heavy Rain.

After is foundation, NDRC has taken on a series of research projects funded by international, national, provincial and local government department and funding agencies, and achieved a number of high level research results. Particularly in the fields of Cellular Automata & Geographical Simulation, New Generation Flood Forecasting Method, Doppler Radar Quantitative Precipitation Estimation, Risk Scaling and Assessment of Mudslide, Numerical Simulation of Typhoon and Heavy Rainfall in South China, it reaches national leading and international advanced level. The application systems developed by the center, including Decision Support System for Flood, Drought and Wind Mitigation of Guangzhou City, Quantitative River Basin Pprecipitation Estimation/Forecasting System based on Doppler Radar, Water Resources Management Information System of Huizhou City, Operational System of Numerical Weather Prediction, have been playing important rules in its operational use. NDRC now is an important unit in natural disaster research, education, consultation and system development in Southern China.