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Methodology for the assessment and classification of regional vulnerability to natural hazards in China: the application of a DEA model

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Abstract

This paper presents a new method for quantifying vulnerability to natural hazards in China. As an important area of vulnerability research, quantitative assessment of vulnerability has raised much focus in academia. Presently, scholars have proposed a variety of methods for quantitative assessment, which usually create an index of overall vulnerability from a suite of indicators, based on the understanding of the cause or mechanism of vulnerability. However, due to the complex nature of vulnerability, this approach caused some arguments on the indicator selection and the weight set for subindices. A data envelopment analysis–based model for the assessment of the regional vulnerability to natural disasters is presented here to improve upon the traditional methods, and a new approach for the classification of vulnerability is proposed. The vulnerability to natural hazards in China’s mainland is illustrated as a case study. The result shows that the overall level of vulnerability to natural hazards in mainland China is high. The geographic pattern shows that vulnerability is highest in western China, followed by diminishing vulnerability in central China, and lowest vulnerability levels in eastern China. There is a negative correlation between the level of vulnerability and the level of regional economic development.

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Notes

  1. The vulnerability used here is different than the concept of risk. Risk is the likelihood over a specified time period of severe alterations in the normal functioning of a community. In its simplest form, risk can be seen as the product of the probability that some event (or sequence) will occur and the adverse consequences of that event. The vulnerability is the likelihood of the consequence resulting from the event. For instance, the risk a community faces from flooding from a nearby river might be calculated based on the likelihood that the river floods the town, multiplied by the value people place on those casualties and economic disruption, while the vulnerability refers to the propensity to suffer disaster loss. In short, risk depends on the probability and impact which is also defined as severity of a scenario while vulnerability shows the susceptibility to that scenario.

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Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2008BAK50B05).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resource Research, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jianyi Huang

  2. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resource Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10010, China

    Yi Liu & Li Ma

  3. School of Tourism and City Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Fei Su

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  1. Jianyi Huang
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Correspondence to Jianyi Huang.

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Huang, J., Liu, Y., Ma, L. et al. Methodology for the assessment and classification of regional vulnerability to natural hazards in China: the application of a DEA model. Nat Hazards 65, 115–134 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0348-5

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