Improving Urban Resilience to Rainstorm Disasters: A Comparative Case Study of Beijing

Abstract

Urban resilience is a major indicator of a city’s sustainability. Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, thereby increasing uncertainty and disaster risk. A city’s capacity to cope with climatic risks can be improved by developing resilience. In China, heavy rainfall is the most frequent and costly extreme weather event. We conducted a comparative case study on Beijing’s extraordinary 7.21 rainstorm disaster in 2012 and the 7.20 rainstorm in 2016. Taken generic resilience and specific resilience as the analytical framework, we found that generic resilience is mainly determined by the socio-economic development level and geography of each district; while the combination of engineering and non-engineering adaptive measures after 2012 disaster has improved the specific resilience to rainstorm disaster, which contributed a good performance in the 2016 rainstorm. As a megacity in China, Beijing is a representative case that provides guidance for other cities to improve their urban resilience to rainstorm disasters.