Recovery evaluation of villages reconstructed with concentrated rural settlement after the Wenchuan earthquake

Abstract

As a rural development approach, concentrated rural settlement (CRS) was used for rural reconstruction when Wenchuan earthquake opened the opportunity window of quick and wide implementation. Although CRS has both proponents and critics, few studies have investigated the recovery success of villages reconstructed with CRS. This research gap has resulted in insufficient theoretical guidance for the practice of CRS and inefficient summarization and transfer of relevant experiences. This study therefore aims to measure the recovery success of three villages reconstructed with CRS located in the hardest-hit areas of the Wenchuan earthquake. Full-permutation polygon synthetic indicator method is adopted to evaluate the recovery success of the three case villages from the economic, social, environmental and disaster relief aspects. It is found that the three case villages have good overall recovery performances as economic, social, and environmental aspects improved a lot from 2008 to 2015, whereas the disaster relief recovery performance increased at the first several years but dramatically decreased at the later years. The implications inferred from the case studies are discussed in detail. This study provides a reference to local governments for monitoring CRS development and for improving recovery of villages reconstructed with CRS.