Livelihood Adaptation of Rural Households under Livelihood Stress: Evidence from Sichuan Province, China

Xue Yang,Shili Guo,Dingde Xu,Xin Deng

doi:10.3390/agriculture11060506

Xue Yang, Shili Guo + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11060506

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Abstract

The welfare of many poor and low-income rural households is vulnerable to earthquakes and secondary geological disasters. The academic literature, however, pays little attention to the livelihood pressure, adaptability, and livelihood strategies of these households. Based on the survey data of 327 rural households in the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquake-stricken areas in the Sichuan Province, the livelihood pressure, adaptability, and livelihood strategy characteristics of rural households were analyzed, and the disordered multi-classification logistic regression model was constructed to explore the correlation between the above-mentioned variables. The results show that: (1) Rural households face the greatest economic pressure and the least social pressure; rural households have the strongest adaptability in social capital and the lowest adaptability in financial capital. The proportion of rural households that chose the aid livelihood strategy was the highest, while the proportion of rural households that chose the adjustment livelihood strategy was the lowest. (2) Compared with the expanded livelihood strategy, (a) When the health pressure is higher, the rural households are more inclined to choose the expanded livelihood strategy, followed by the contractive livelihood strategy and, finally, the aid livelihood strategies; (b), the higher the physical capital, the more often the rural households tend to choose the expanded livelihood strategy compared to the adjustment livelihood strategy; (c), The higher the financial capital of farm households, the more they prefer contractive livelihood strategies compared to the expanded livelihood strategy and (d), compared with the aid livelihood strategy, rural households with greater economic pressure are more inclined to choose the expanded livelihood strategy.This study can provide a reference for the establishment of relevant policies related to the adaptation capacity of rural households in the earthquake hazard zone.

Highlights

The frequency of extreme weather events and the severity of disaster-causing events are expected to increase globally as climate change intensifies [1,2,3]
Based on the survey data of 327 rural households in Wenchuan and Lushan earthquake areas in Sichuan Province, the entropy method was used to measure the livelihood pressure and adaptability scores of rural households, and the disordered multi-classification logistic regression model was established to explore the relationship among livelihood pressure, adaptability, and livelihood strategies
Rural households with higher social capital prefer to invest more assets and adopt different agricultural production practices to deal with livelihood pressure

Summary

Introduction

The frequency of extreme weather events (e.g., extreme rainstorms, droughts, hurricanes, etc.) and the severity of disaster-causing events are expected to increase globally as climate change intensifies [1,2,3]. Extreme weather events related to climate change increased by 50% between 1950 and 1990 [4]. On the other hand, natural disasters caused by climate change will lead to food crops reduction and even threaten national food security due to the lack of a sound disaster prevention and mitigation system [5]. In China, for example, meteorological disasters caused crop damage of 19.96 million hectares and direct economic losses of up to 368.1 billion Yuan in 2020 alone, according to the data of the China Climate Bulletin. According to existing studies, the academic research on earthquake disaster risk management is mostly concentrated in developed countries [12,13], and there are relatively few studies on disaster risk management for residents in earthquake-threatened areas in China [14,15,16]

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