Analysis of the differentiation in human vulnerability to earthquake hazard between rural and urban areas: case studies in 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake (2008) and 4.20 Ya’an Earthquake (2013), China

Abstract

Taking the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake and 4.20 Ya’an Earthquake as examples, the research’s main objective was to identify the human vulnerability of the rural areas in most of the developing countries, such as China, are higher than the urban areas and should be the hot spot to be researched. By assessing the human vulnerability, this paper offers a new research perspective to analyze the differentiation in human vulnerability to earthquake hazard between rural and urban areas; the result indicates the rural areas are characterized by a rather high human sensitivity and low human exposure, and the completely opposite results are in the urban areas. The rural areas, along with the high human sensitivity, make population more vulnerable to the severe impacts of earthquake hazards. Furthermore, this paper examines the relative impact of human conditions and building conditions on the human sensitivity. The result provides an interesting conclusion that the human sensitivity of the rural areas has a significant correlation with the percentage of houses collapsed, suggesting that the percentage of house collapsed is a decisive factor causing the higher human sensitivity in the rural areas. This paper is an initial effort to quantitatively analyze the differentiation in human vulnerability to earthquake hazard between rural and urban areas, which can warrant special attention by stakeholders to reconsider current earthquake management strategies, and develop adequate contingency plans for the rural areas to address and prevent the deaths caused by the earthquake hazards.