Resilience of an Earthquake-Stricken Rural Community in Southwest China: Correlation with Disaster Risk Reduction Efforts.

Ke Cui,Ziqiang Han,Dongming Wang

doi:10.3390/ijerph15030407

Abstract

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities have given growing attention to building community resilience, but the effects of such efforts on community resilience are still under-investigated, especially in China where the concept of community resilience has only just emerged. Using the Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit Assessment Survey, data on self-perceived community resilience were collected in 2017 from a post-disaster Chinese rural community in Yingxiu Town, which was the epicenter of the Wenchuan earthquake (Magnitude = 8.0) in the year 2008. Linear regression analyses were conducted to explore the correlations between residents’ DRR behaviors and perceived community resilience with the control of their socio-demographic characteristics including age, ethnicity, gender, education, income level, employment status and marital status. Results indicate that residents who volunteered for DRR activities, received geological disaster education, participated in evacuation drills, and reported higher income levels had a perception of higher community resilience. Practice research is suggested to help clarify the cause and effect of DRR work on the enhancement of community resilience to disasters in China and abroad. Attention is also called to the development of a Chinese indigenous community resilience concept and assessment instrument.

Highlights

Disasters—which have been defined as processes that encompass an event or a series of events [1]—often involve widespread human, material, economic, and environmental impacts.The range of negative consequences caused by disasters can potentially weaken a community’s overall well-being, even for long periods of time, and such impacts usually exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope by only using its own resources [2]
The percentage of males is 29.10%, which is far smaller than the rate of females, possibly because in most rural villages in China, the residents are predominantly females whose husbands have migrated to the cities for better-paid jobs [43]
Using the 2016 per capita disposable income (i.e., 10,702 RMB) of rural residents in this region as a standard, 45.09% of the participants reported that their income level was lower than this standard while the other 54.91% said that their income was higher

Summary

Introduction

Disasters—which have been defined as processes that encompass an event or a series of events [1]—often involve widespread human, material, economic, and environmental impacts.The range of negative consequences caused by disasters can potentially weaken a community’s overall well-being, even for long periods of time, and such impacts usually exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope by only using its own resources [2]. The aim of disaster management is to significantly reduce the potential losses due to hazards and ensure that the victims of disasters receive the appropriate assistance and recover from the impacts rapidly and effectively [5]. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s (UNISDR) Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 [6] has significantly shifted disaster concepts and approaches from a stance of reactive emergency response and recovery to an attitude of pro-active disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparation. This shift is evident in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (Sendai Framework) adopted in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan by

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Conclusion