Factors influencing willingness to participate in disaster reduction

Abstract

This research is based on a questionnaire of 556 peasant households in the Jianghan Plain. By analyzing the rate of participation of peasant households using a participation model, this study intends to explain the peasant household’s willingness to participate in disaster reduction and factors that influence willingness to participate. The investigation of participation rate revealed that households are generally concerned about engineering measures used for disaster reduction, but the willingness to participate is not strong; the peasant household’s attention to recommendations for non-engineering disaster reduction is high, but the willingness to participate is very low. The quantitative analysis of the participation model of disaster reduction showed that the level of peasant household’s willingness to participate in engineering and non-engineering disaster reduction was dependent upon their attitude toward a variety of measures of risk and the input costs of disaster reduction. The cognition of a disaster’s impact, fertility level of farmland, condition of irrigation canals, and amount of arable land have a remarkable influence on the willingness to participate in engineering and non-engineering disaster reduction. Age of household and joining cooperating organizations do not influence the willingness to participate in engineering and non-engineering disaster reduction. On the other hand, the education level, professional skills, and family size influence on one dimension of disaster reduction, but do not influence another dimension of disaster reduction.