High-resolution assessment of urban disaster resilience: a case study of Futian District, Shenzhen, China

Abstract

Quantifying urban disaster resilience is needed to strengthen the capacity of urban disaster prevention and mitigation strategies. In previous studies, the spatial unit used for urban disaster resilience assessment was coarse, which could easily cause local differences to be overlooked. To rectify the problem, this study integrated high spatial-resolution urban grid data and built an index system from economic, social, administrative, and technological dimensions. On this basis, both exponential decay function and spatial analysis techniques were applied to establish a high-precision evaluation method of urban disaster resilience. The results showed that the urban disaster resilience of Futian District (FTUDRI) had a certain spatial aggregation effect, with an average of 0.37 ± 0.08, which was at a middle level. Areas with low and middle-low levels of FTUDRI which accounted for 27.28% were mainly located in the western, northern, and southern edges of Futian District, with undeveloped economy and inadequate emergency infrastructures. We considered the neighborhood impact of point indicators on urban disaster resilience and the results indicated if we neglected this there would be an underestimation of the urban disaster resilience assessment. Hospitals, administrations, and emergency material points were key driving indicators for improving FTUDRI. In conclusion, our results demonstrated the necessity of pursuing high-resolution urban disaster resilience assessments and the effectiveness of the newly proposed method. The results of this study can provide policymakers with a clear location of where a low level of urban disaster resilience occurs, providing a basis for urban disaster prevention and improvement measures.