The emerging vulnerable population of the urbanisation resulting from post-disaster recovery of the Wenchuan earthquake

2014 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 2103-2118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saini Yang ◽  
Juan Du ◽  
Shuai He ◽  
Mimi Shi ◽  
Xiaohua Sun
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fangxin Yi ◽  
Yong Tu

The Wenchuan earthquake, which happened in May 2008 in China, was one of the most destructive natural disasters of the past decade. The Chinese government implemented several aid programs, including the Paired Assistance to Disaster-Affected Areas (PADAA) program, to assist with disaster recovery. Although the Wenchuan earthquake has gained much scholarly attention, previous studies often adopted different recovery measures and provided fragmented empirical evidence on how an aid program may have influenced the recovery process in both the short and long term. To bridge the gap, this paper collects eight social, economic, and institutional indicators to measure four types of recovery processes, namely, economic recovery, social recovery, institutional recovery, and built environment recovery. The data, collected between 2002 and 2015, covers 269 earthquake-stricken counties. Based on this data, we constructed a set of disaster recovery indexes. We then evaluated the impacts of the PADAA program on the disaster recovery process across the 269 counties in both the short and long term. We concluded that the impact of the PADAA program on the post-disaster economic recovery was significant in both the short and long term, whereas its impact on the recovery of the institutional and built environment occurred in the short term. Its impact on post-disaster social recovery was inconclusive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4979 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Zhao ◽  
Fanneng He ◽  
Caishan Zhao

Under the current resilience development framework, which is mainly based on urban communities, it is difficult to meet the needs of the vulnerable populations in poor villages. This article aims to explore a specific and operable guidance framework suitable for the resilient development of Chinese poor villages after disasters from the perspective of social equity. The framework will help guide the sustainable development of poor villages after disasters and also provide a reference for the resilience of other similar vulnerable areas. When integrating climate change response and disaster risk management to explore sustainable development in poor villages, the essence is to explore the resilience development framework focused on the construction of resilient communities in poor villages. We take the recovery and reconstruction of poor villages after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 as an example. Through the analysis of the effects of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, we found that although poor communities have made significant achievements since the earthquake, there are still many aspects that need to be improved, including social life systems, economic production systems, and natural ecosystems. Therefore, we comprehensively analyzed the characteristics of poor socio-economic conditions, the complex ecological environment, and the low cultural level of residents in poor villages. Furthermore, this study followed the principle of “Build back better” (BBB) and conducted an in-depth study of the framework for the resilience of poor villages. In terms of risk reduction, it is recommended to improve structural resilience from guarantee of preferential prices and selection of environmentally friendly materials, avoid risk and villagers’ participation in the formulation of general plans, and promote disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities from risk prediction and curriculum development. In terms of community recovery, it is suggested to promote community economics and victims’ livelihoods by promoting industrial transformation and sustainable livelihoods and promote social and psychological health development from social relations and psychological rehabilitation. In terms of efficient implementation, specific improvements include the improvement of public participation systems and the establishment of coordination offices and sound institutional mechanisms, the development of community standards and the introduction of financial support policies, the improvement of laws and regulations, and the improvement of monitoring and evaluation from dynamic monitoring and mass satisfaction surveys. It is important to guide the sustainable development of vulnerable communities by constructing a post-disaster resistant development framework based on BBB principles.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Liu ◽  
Zhenwu Shi ◽  
Di Lu ◽  
Yongliang Wang

Abstract. Our world is prone to more frequent, deadly and costly earthquake disasters, which are increasingly uncertain and complex due to the rapid environmental and socio-economic changes occurring at multiple scales. There is an urgent need to recover rapidly and effectively for community after earthquake disasters. To enhance community recovery, it is necessary to have a good initial understanding of what it is, its determinants and how it can be measured, maintained and improved. So this article proposes the concept of community recovery as the capacity to recover and rebuild after the earthquake disasters by considering the original perspective of recovery. And we develop a new quantitative approach to measure community recovery to earthquake from four dimensions (population, economic, building, and infrastructure) by extending the concepts of recovery triangle. Taking the community of Wenchuan as the example to test our mathematical model and compare different recovery levels of four dimensions under the situation of Wenchuan Earthquake, the results can help the policy makers identify the low-recovery dimensions of Wenchuan to enhance post-disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts, and address the vital importance of local government in improving the post-disaster recovery.


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