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- Title
Creating social-physical resilience to natural disasters: lessons from the Wenchuan earthquake.
- Authors
Tang, Wenzhe; Li, Jing; Lei, Zhen; Wang, Enzhi; Shen, Wenxin
- Abstract
Creating resilience is a proactive approach engaging with natural disaster reduction, which should be based on an understanding of the linkages between social-physical systems. Here we report a case study of Wenchuan earthquake, revealing that vulnerable built systems, degraded ecological systems, and socially disadvantaged communities were closely interrelated and largely existed in rural areas of inland China. This indicates that, while it is urgent to improve resilience of built systems, fundamentally, approaches should be adopted for rural dwellers to enter virtuous circles of economical activities as well as benign ecological cycles. Achieving these is challenging that will require systematic governance improvements in China. The lessons from Wenchuan earthquake suggest a research and policy emphasis on the interactions between social processes and ecological processes in inland rural areas of developing countries for enhancing physical resilience, which would facilitate achieving the mutual objectives on adaptation to earthquake-caused risks, weather-related disaster mitigation, and sustainable development.
- Subjects
CHINA; NATURAL disasters; WENCHUAN Earthquake, China, 2008; RISK assessment; ECONOMIC impact; SOCIAL processes; SUSTAINABLE development; MANAGEMENT
- Publication
Natural Hazards, 2015, Vol 79, Issue 2, p1111
- ISSN
0921-030X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11069-015-1895-3