Measuring and Characterizing Community Recovery to
Transcript Of Measuring and Characterizing Community Recovery to
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
Measuring and Characterizing Community Recovery to Earthquake: the Case of
2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, China
Jie Liu1, Zhenwu Shi1, Di Lu2 and Yongliang Wang3 1School of Civil Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, Hexing Road 26, Xiang Fang District, Harbin, China. 2Department of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, No. 92 Xidazhi Street, Harbin, China. 3Harbin Power System Engineering & Research Institute CO., LTD, No.1 Xusheng Street, Harbin, China. Correspondence to: J. Liu ([email protected]) 1
2 Abstract. Our world is prone to more frequent, deadly and costly earthquake disasters, which are 3 increasingly uncertain and complex due to the rapid environmental and socio-economic changes 4 occurring at multiple scales. There is an urgent need to recover rapidly and effectively for community 5 after earthquake disasters. To enhance community recovery, it is necessary to have a good initial 6 understanding of what it is, its determinants and how it can be measured, maintained and improved. So 7 this article proposes the concept of community recovery as the capacity to recover and rebuild after the 8 earthquake disasters by considering the original perspective of recovery. And we develop a new 9 quantitative approach to measure community recovery to earthquake from four dimensions (population, 10 economic, building, and infrastructure) by extending the concepts of recovery triangle. Taking the 11 community of Wenchuan as the example to test our mathematical model and compare different recovery 12 levels of four dimensions under the situation of Wenchuan Earthquake, the results can help the policy 13 makers identify the low-recovery dimensions of Wenchuan to enhance post-disaster recovery and 14 reconstruction efforts, and address the vital importance of local government in improving the 15 post-disaster recovery.
16
17 1 Introduction
18
19 The damaging earthquake risk of cities as the biggest risk of all natural disasters has specifically 20 increased over the years due to the increasing complexities in urban environments and a high 21 concentrated urbanization in seismic risk-prone areas. The growing large-scale devastating effects 22 caused by recent catastrophic earthquakes (e.g. 15 August 2007, Peru; 12 May 2008, Wenchuan, China; 23 12 January, 2010, Haiti; 11 March 2011, Honshu Island, Japan) have attracted the attention of the policy 24 makers to formulate effective risk prevention policies. The earthquake risk depends on the seismic 25 hazard, but it is more dependent on the inherent properties of the communities which is compounded by 26 the vulnerability, adaptation and resilience. Above all of these inherent properties, resilience is
1
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
27 interpreted to be the central component of disaster risk reduction, which is used to bridge the two other 28 properties together. Some researchers asserted that a disaster-resilient community has the ability to cope 29 with the disaster strikes, and improve its inherent genetic or behavioral characteristics to better adapt to 30 disasters rather than regain pre-disaster levels of vulnerability (Mooney 2009). So policymakers have 31 called for concerted efforts to build “earthquake-resilience community” for the purpose of finding the 32 new stable states and rebuilding a safer community in the historically experienced deleterious 33 earthquake disasters (Alesch 2009). The definition of resilience is the ability that is exposed to seismic 34 hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate and recover from seismic hazards quickly and efficiently, which 35 is divided by some scholars into during-disaster resistance, short-term post-disaster recovery, and 36 long-term post-disaster trans-formative (UN/ISDR 2010). Recovery represents a fundamental 37 dimension of disaster resilience, includes both the possibilities o return to normal, that is, pre-disaster 38 condition, and alternatively, to be rebuilt or transformed to a completely different status. So 39 reconstruction, restoration, rehabilitation and post-disaster redevelopment are all considered to be the 40 parts of the recovery process, yet it is widely acknowledged to be the final phase of the disaster life 41 cycle (Tierney et al. 2001; NRC 2006; Peacock et al. 2008; Olshansky and Chang 2009). 42 In academia, recovery has traditionally taken on a more outcome-oriented conceptualization, with 43 emphasis on the physical aspect as seen in early studies (Haas et al. 1977). Researchers like Nigg then 44 began to point out that recovery should be conceptualized as a social process that “begins before a 45 disaster occurs and encompasses decision-making concerning emergency response, restoration, and 46 reconstruction activities following the disaster” (Nigg 1995). Some other scholars have suggested that 47 recovery can be defined as the “process by which a community has experienced a structural failure of 48 this sort to reestablish a routine, organized, institutionalized mode of adaptation to its post-impact 49 environment” since the disaster was often seen as a failure of social structure (Bates and Gillis Peacock 50 1989). These changes in the definition to reflect the shifts in conceptualizing disaster recovery in the 51 last few decades from a linear, static issue focused on the physical aspects referred to a specific set of 52 stages, to a dynamic, interactive, multi-dimensional decision-making process, including the 53 ‘reconstructing, and remodeling of the natural and social-economic environment by pre-disaster 54 planning and post-disaster actions’ (Smith and Wenger 2007). And the researches surrounding "disaster 55 recovery" have attracted more and more attention in recent years. Definitions of this term vary in the 56 literature, which are commonly used in the sense of ‘returning to pre-disaster conditions’, or ‘reaching a 57 new stable state that may be different from either of these’ (Quarantelli 1999). The new National 58 Disaster Recovery Framework developed by FEMA in 2011(FEMA 2011) define recovery as “those 59 capabilities necessary to assist communities affected by an incident to recover effectively, including, but 60 not limited to, rebuilding infrastructure systems, providing adequate interim and long-term housing for 61 survivors; restoring health, social, and community services; promoting economic development; and 62 restoring natural and cultural resources”. And community recovery emerges “as the outcome of several 63 sets of activities: restoring basic services to acceptable levels, replacing infrastructure capacity that is
2
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
64 damaged or destroyed, rebuilding or replacing critical social or economic elements of the community 65 that are damaged or lost, and establishing or reestablishing relationships and linkages among critical 66 elements of the community” (Alesch et al. 2009). 67 In recent years, much of the current disaster literature provides two major perspectives and 68 interpretations to measure recovery: (i) returning to pre-disaster situations; and (ii) obtaining a new 69 normal conditions (Chang et al. 2011). The first perspective and interpretation is conceptually based on 70 the comparison of the community conditions before the disaster and after the recovery process, and it 71 emphasizing on the rebounding as quickly as possible (Wildavsky 1991; Sherrieb et al. 2010). In this 72 regard, the pre-disaster situations are considered to be the normal state. The rapid recovery process is 73 designed to minimize losses caused by disasters (Alesch et al. 2001). The second perspective and 74 interpretation highlights how there is a new normal state after a disaster (Alesch et al. 2009; Chang et al. 75 2010). However, the ‘new normal state’ is more applicable to post-disaster attitudes and behavior of 76 human, showing the evolution of the collective psychology, than it is to physical recovery. Beside that, 77 some recovery indexes have been designed to track the recovery progress, such as the Social 78 Vulnerability Index proposed by Cutter and Finch (2008), Spatial Recovery Index (SRI) proposed by 79 Ward et al. (2010) and so on. These recovery indexes resonate with the fine view of the bouncing back 80 method in as much as these dimensions are critical to understand the post-disaster improved situations. 81 Nowadays, the research of disaster recovery is in the initial stage, more key research questions need to 82 be resolved: Why do some communities recover more quickly and successfully than others? Is there a 83 timetable for recovery? How does the recovery trajectory of communities differ by type and magnitude 84 of the hazard event, conditions of initial damage, characteristics of the community, and decisions made 85 over the course of reconstruction and recovery? How do different types of assistance and recovery 86 resources affect recovery? What types of decisions and strategies are most critical to recovery? How do 87 disasters affect communities over the long term? In the past studies, the idea of post-disaster 88 improvement is preferred by many scholars to the idea of bringing back to or regaining the pre-disaster 89 normality, especially when the disasters are occurring in developing countries, while the concepts and 90 practices of sustainable development and risk reduction are being integrated into disaster recovery 91 processes. The concept of disaster recovery is recognized as ordered, knowable, and predicable, for the 92 emphasis is mainly focus on the building environment. However, later studies have shown that the 93 recovery process does not follow a predictable timeline, and that the recovery process is increasingly to 94 multi-dimensional, including both physical (economic) and social-psychological aspects. The 95 determinants of disaster recovery are many, include socioeconomic status and development trends, 96 structural change and adaptation, disaster impacts and disruptions, post-disaster response efforts, 97 informal and formal external assistance (governmental and institutional capacity), and 98 macro-socioeconomic or program/policy changes. So the measurement of disaster recovery is a 99 complex construct, a recurrent problem is the lack of a simple, feasible and effective measurement of 100 disaster recovery. So in this paper, we proposed a new, practical method for measuring and
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
101 characterizing community recovery to earthquake in four dimensions, and applied it to Wenchuan 102 Community. The final products of our research provide insights for decision-makers to acknowledge 103 and understand the differential levels of community recovery in these four dimensions, in order to 104 maximize the overall post-disaster community recovery by prioritizing efforts, and formulating effective, 105 operational and valuable reconstruction strategies and policies.
106
107 2 Study Area
108
109 The Wenchuan Community (31°East, 103.4°North) in Sichuan Province of China was hit by a 110 magnitude 8.0 Ms (the surface-wave magnitude) and 7.9 Mw earthquake (Wenchuan Earthquake) 111 (Figure 1) at 14:28:04 CST (China Standard Time) on May 12, 2008. The Epicentral intensity of this 112 earthquake was up to 11 degrees, and the areas directly devastated by this earthquake were as large as 113 100,000 square kilometers. Wenchuan Earthquake is the most destructive and widespread earthquake 114 since the founding of the People's Republic of China, which affected more than half of China and other 115 Asian countries and regions. Up to September 18, 2008, the Wenchuan Earthquake caused 69,227 116 people dead, 374,643 injured, and 17,923 missing. Direct economic losses reached 845.2 billion yuan 117 ($ 133.2 billion). The Wenchuan Community as the epicenter of Wenchuan earthquake was the hardest 118 hit (Figure 2b). In Wenchuan Community, this earthquake left 15,941 people dead, 34,583 injured, and 119 7,930 people have been listed as missing. The Wenchuan Community was razed by this earthquake: all 120 infrastructures were completely destroyed, most buildings were severely damaged, many economic 121 sectors such as industry, commerce and tourism were suffered heavy losses (64.3 billion yuan ($ 10.1 122 billion) in direct economic losses).
123
124 Figure 1. Location of Wenchuan Earthquake
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
125
126 After Wenchuan Earthquake, Chinese Central Government commanded a large number of rescuers
127 (including firefighters, special police, volunteers and humanitarian relief experts) from all over China
128 and around the world to take emergency response measures. On June 8, 2008, "Regulations on
129 Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction" was promulgated, and the Chinese
130 government announced to invest 1 trillion yuan ($157.7 billion) to rebuild the affected areas over the
131 next 3 years. In the rebuilding and recovery processes, with the principle of "one province helps one
132 severely affected communities", 19 provinces and cities (e.g. Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Shandong,
133 Zhejiang, Beijing, Liaoning, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, Fujian, Huan, Hubei, Anhui, Tianjin, Heilongjiang,
134 Chonging, Jiangxi, Jilin) supported the reconstruction of 18 worst-hit communities (e.g. Wenchuan,
135 Qingchuan, Beichuan, Mianzhu, and so on) for three years. Just forced on the Wenchuan Community,
136 the reconstruction projects of the national plan are more than 4,000, with the total investment of 40
137 billion yuan ($ 6.3 billion) from 2008 to 2011. On the third anniversary of Wenchuan Earthquake (May
138 12, 2011), the reconstruction of the Wenchuan Community is completed, and the Wenchuan Community
139 is from ruins to prosperity (Figure 2c).
140
The aerial image of the
The aerial image of the
The aerial image of the
Wenchuan Community
Wenchuan Community reconstructed Wenchuan
before Wenchuan
after Wenchuan
Community
Earthquake
Earthquake
a
b
c
141 Figure 2. The development process of the Wenchuan Community in, during, and after Wenchuan 142 Earthquake (from May 12, 2008 to May 12, 2011)
143
144 3 Data and Methods
145
146 3.1 Data Sources
147
148 Data of the detail reconstruction or recovery processes of the Wenchuan Community after the 149 earthquake including population, economy, building and infrastructure are mainly obtained from the 150 reports on the work of the Wenchuan government from 2008 to 2014. Data of the recovery process and 151 status of the affected people are gotten by the random interview of 1000 affected families from all
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
152 resettlement sites. Other statistics and description data are gathered by combining different sources (e.g., 153 official statistical yearbooks, newspapers and media reports) following the Wenchuan Earthquake. And 154 the local information of the reconstruction processes of buildings and infrastructure of Wenchuan 155 Community, which are obtained by field surveys and interviews. After the earthquake, the government 156 made every effort to restore infrastructure services of the affected areas, and the emergency water 157 supply, telecommunications, electricity, and roads were recovered respectively on May 13, May 15, 158 May 17, and August 12, 2008. With regarding to repair and rebuild the earthquake-affected buildings, 159 501 reconstruction projects with the total investment of 22.177 billion yuan ($ 3.5 billion)are completed 160 in Wenchuan Community. From 2008 to 2011, reconstruction projects had been completed by 19%, 161 53%, and 94.7% in each year. In 2012, all of these 501 reconstruction projects were completed. These 162 all data were entered into a computerized database. This database was an important source of 163 information for measuring the recovery of the Wenchuan Community to the earthquake.
164
165 3.2 Defining the concept of community recovery to earthquake
166
167 The researches contain many major conceptual and measurement approaches to define and measure 168 community recovery. Community recovery, as the final phase of the disaster life cycle, continues 169 beyond emergency response, that might be taken in the immediate aftermath of a disruption until 170 returning to pre-disaster normality or transforming to a new stable state. This phase may take days, 171 months, even years, to accomplish; thus, requiring long-term planning. The recovery is a dynamic, 172 complex and challenging process that involves all sectors of a community, comprised of the impact of 173 disasters, households, business, buildings, as well the lifeline system (Miles and Chang, 2007). In many 174 cases, it is not even clear if and when recovery has been achieved because of varying stakeholder goals 175 for the community, for example with some wanting it returned to its pre-disaster status and others 176 wanting it to undergo change to realize a vision in which advances are made in risk reduction and other 177 areas. But most of all, the decision-makers of local governments mainly through improving the speed of 178 the recovery process to restore the operation of the interrupted business, and to rebuild damaged 179 infrastructure to allow the restarting of normal activities (Alesch et al. 2001). So the speed of the 180 recovery process can be defined as the key indicator of measuring the community recovery in much 181 disaster literature. In this paper, we define the concept of community recovery as the capacity of a 182 community to recover and rebuild itself rapidly to an acceptable level of functioning and structure 183 following the earthquake disaster occurs (Figure 3).
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
184
185 Figure 3. The the concept of community recovery
186
187 Since recovery begins when a community “repairs or develops social, political, and economic processes 188 that enable it to function in the new context within which it finds itself” (Alesch et al. 2009). When a 189 devastating earthquake hits a community, people are injured or killed, economy interruption begins, 190 buildings are collapsed, and infrastructures are disrupted. The ability of the community to carry out 191 recovery activities to minimize the immediate impacts caused by an earthquake. According to the 192 characteristics of earthquake disaster, and in order to better interpret all aspects of recovery of the 193 community, the community recovery in this paper is divided into four dimensions (such as population, 194 economy, buildings, and infrastructure): 195 (1) Population recovery 196 Earthquake disasters are becoming more complex and uncertain in recent years as a result of the 197 increasing populations living in seismic areas, which is considered to be exposed to a relatively high 198 degree of earthquake risk. So this would increase the population affected by earthquake disasters, which 199 in further can increase the pre-disaster extent of casualties. On the contrary, the trend of rapid 200 urbanization could induce a future of increased post-disaster population recovery (e.g. the growth rate 201 can be described as the population recovery in Figure 3). And benefits and restoration efforts are 202 distributed unequally in the recovery process amongst different sub-populations according to their 203 geographic locations, socioeconomic status, and different reconstruction programs. So in this paper, the 204 population recovery is measured based on the index of the average growth rate of the proportion of the 205 recovered population (e.g. the injured people were treated, the homeless people were placed) in the total 206 affected population after an earthquake disaster. 207 (2) Economic recovery
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
208 Economic recovery as a promoter of recovery, refers to making the best of the internal and external 209 resources that are available to speed recovery to return to a previous level of economic function at a 210 given point in post-disaster time. The local economic status determines how rapidly a community can 211 recover from such earthquake disasters (Lee 2014; Anne and Adam 2011). Continuation of trends that 212 have been concentrating on the increased significantly economic damage (EM-DAT 2012), while 213 increasing economic development has increased economic vulnerability to earthquake disasters, and in 214 turn a strong and diverse regional economy have direct influence on the recovery capacity to earthquake 215 disasters (e.g. the growth rate can be described as the economic recovery in Figure 4). So in this paper, 216 the economic recovery is measured based on the index of the average growth rate of gross domestic 217 product (GDP) of the affected area after an earthquake disaster. 218 (3) Building recovery 219 Building recovery refers to the capacity of a community for post-disaster building reconstruction and 220 retrofitting, which are often amenable to taking on board resilient technologies, given that they have 221 witnessed the effects of the initial threat. The resilient buildings can adjust to certain changes in 222 conditions to counteract damaging structural reactions in response to an seismic hazard. Buildings built 223 with adequate consideration of the earthquake effects that are appropriate for their location dominate the 224 exposure to earthquakes. And the application of earthquake-resistant building codes can make buildings 225 not be seismically vulnerable by helping to prevent or minimize damage to the built environment during 226 earthquake disasters. High-level building recovery is addressed in rebuilding and retrofitting these 227 earthquake resistant buildings (e.g. the rebuild rate can be described as the building recovery in Figure 228 4), which helps to build-in recovery and provide enhanced safety built environment for community. So 229 in this paper, the building recovery is measured based on the index of average rebuilding rate of the 230 collapsed buildings of the affected area after an earthquake disaster. 231 (4) Infrastructure recovery 232 Infrastructure recovery is the judgment to characterize the ability of the key infrastructure which is 233 threatened and disrupted by the earthquake disasters to recover function to the extent possible in 234 post-disaster time. The disruption of the infrastructure system in a major earthquake disaster as the 235 indirect economic damage of a community, suggests whether such community to be resilient, to what 236 extent. A resilient infrastructure system must be designed to continue functioning under extreme seismic 237 hazard conditions, which is a priority goal for earthquake-resilient communities. The capacity for 238 critical infrastructure to quickly restore services following an earthquake determines how rapidly 239 communities can recover from such disasters. Many researches rank the availability of electricity, roads, 240 telecommunications, and water supply as the top four critical infrastructure or lifeline systems that need 241 to function following an earthquake (O’Rourke 2009). A high rate of infrastructure deterioration may be 242 due to the poor quality, the aged equipment, and the highly exposed locations, while the development of 243 the infrastructure system is identified as a strategic priority to be essential to increase the recovery of 244 infrastructure (e.g. the recovered rate can be described as the infrastructure recovery in Figure 4). So in
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
245 this paper, the infrastructure recovery is measured based on the index of the average recovered rate of 246 the disrupted infrastructures of the affected area after an earthquake disaster.
247
248 3.3 Measuring the community recovery to earthquake
249
250 The approach taken in this paper for measuring community recovery is based upon the concept of the 251 disaster recovery triangle. Originally introduced by Bruneauetal, and extended by Zobel, the disaster 252 recovery is calculated by two factors: robustness (the strength of the system, measured by its ability to 253 resist the impact of a disaster event, in terms of the extent of damage suffered be cause of the event), 254 and rapidity (the rate at which a system is able to recover to an acceptable level of functionality). And 255 the disaster recovery triangle (in the form of the area above the quality curve) represented the 256 relationship between these two factors. So for example, the area 1 of the triangle (calculated by the 257 product of the extent of damage and the time needed to recover normal operations) can be interpreted to 258 assess the recovery of community 1 in Figure 5. However, in our opinion, using the disaster recovery 259 triangle to measure the recovery is not so accurate. Firstly, robustness as one factor of this triangle, 260 which addressed the ability to resist the disaster, is generally considered to be the extent of damage of 261 the community. Secondly, the disaster recovery triangle can not be accurately used by decision makers 262 to compare the recovery of different communities. For example, in Figure 4, if the initial extent of 263 damage (X2) is the same, the size of the area (Area 2(a)Recovery 2(b)) of the communities (Community 2(a), Community 2(b)). But if the 265 initial extent of damage (X1
269 Figure 4. The concept of the recovery triangle
270
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
271 Therefore, to compare the recovery of different community, this paper extends the original concept of 272 recovery triangle and proposes a new recovery measurement to fit this paradigm. We use the recover 273 rate to measure community recovery (see in Figure 5). However, the slope of the curve is different at 274 each time point, and not a constant. For the purpose of facilitating the calculation, we use the average 275 linear rate to substitute the curve rate. We let X as the extent of damage to represent the percentage of 276 functionality lost, and we let t0(1) and t0(2) represent the time needed to recover normal operations. 277 Based on the principle of the equal area, the community recovery (R) can be measured as the slope of 278 the average linear rate ( is the angle of this line). The entire processes of calculating are as follows:
279
Area 1=Area 2= X t0( 2 ) → t ( 2 ) 2 Area1 → R tan X
(1)
2
0
X
t0( 2 )
280
281 Figure 5. The measurement extended from the concept of recovery triangle
282
283 4 Results
284
285 In the result of our study, with the community recovery measuring approach proposed in 3.3 (formula 1), 286 we calculate the recovery scores of Wenchuan Community in four dimensions (population recovery, 287 economic recovery, building recovery and infrastructure recovery), respectively (seen in Figure 6). And 288 three levels (low-recovery, medium-recovery, high-recovery) with the recovery scores of 289 [0-0.577](α=0º-30º), [0.577-1.732](α=30º-60º), [1.732-+∞] (α=60º-90º) are adopted in this study to 290 assess the degree of recovery. The results suggest that the recovery score of economy (Reconomy=1.15) is 291 minimum, and the recovery score of infrastructure (Rinfrastructure=135.19) is maximum. And the economic 292 recovery of Wenhuan which belongs to the medium-recovery level, the population, buildings and
10
Measuring and Characterizing Community Recovery to Earthquake: the Case of
2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, China
Jie Liu1, Zhenwu Shi1, Di Lu2 and Yongliang Wang3 1School of Civil Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, Hexing Road 26, Xiang Fang District, Harbin, China. 2Department of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, No. 92 Xidazhi Street, Harbin, China. 3Harbin Power System Engineering & Research Institute CO., LTD, No.1 Xusheng Street, Harbin, China. Correspondence to: J. Liu ([email protected]) 1
2 Abstract. Our world is prone to more frequent, deadly and costly earthquake disasters, which are 3 increasingly uncertain and complex due to the rapid environmental and socio-economic changes 4 occurring at multiple scales. There is an urgent need to recover rapidly and effectively for community 5 after earthquake disasters. To enhance community recovery, it is necessary to have a good initial 6 understanding of what it is, its determinants and how it can be measured, maintained and improved. So 7 this article proposes the concept of community recovery as the capacity to recover and rebuild after the 8 earthquake disasters by considering the original perspective of recovery. And we develop a new 9 quantitative approach to measure community recovery to earthquake from four dimensions (population, 10 economic, building, and infrastructure) by extending the concepts of recovery triangle. Taking the 11 community of Wenchuan as the example to test our mathematical model and compare different recovery 12 levels of four dimensions under the situation of Wenchuan Earthquake, the results can help the policy 13 makers identify the low-recovery dimensions of Wenchuan to enhance post-disaster recovery and 14 reconstruction efforts, and address the vital importance of local government in improving the 15 post-disaster recovery.
16
17 1 Introduction
18
19 The damaging earthquake risk of cities as the biggest risk of all natural disasters has specifically 20 increased over the years due to the increasing complexities in urban environments and a high 21 concentrated urbanization in seismic risk-prone areas. The growing large-scale devastating effects 22 caused by recent catastrophic earthquakes (e.g. 15 August 2007, Peru; 12 May 2008, Wenchuan, China; 23 12 January, 2010, Haiti; 11 March 2011, Honshu Island, Japan) have attracted the attention of the policy 24 makers to formulate effective risk prevention policies. The earthquake risk depends on the seismic 25 hazard, but it is more dependent on the inherent properties of the communities which is compounded by 26 the vulnerability, adaptation and resilience. Above all of these inherent properties, resilience is
1
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
27 interpreted to be the central component of disaster risk reduction, which is used to bridge the two other 28 properties together. Some researchers asserted that a disaster-resilient community has the ability to cope 29 with the disaster strikes, and improve its inherent genetic or behavioral characteristics to better adapt to 30 disasters rather than regain pre-disaster levels of vulnerability (Mooney 2009). So policymakers have 31 called for concerted efforts to build “earthquake-resilience community” for the purpose of finding the 32 new stable states and rebuilding a safer community in the historically experienced deleterious 33 earthquake disasters (Alesch 2009). The definition of resilience is the ability that is exposed to seismic 34 hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate and recover from seismic hazards quickly and efficiently, which 35 is divided by some scholars into during-disaster resistance, short-term post-disaster recovery, and 36 long-term post-disaster trans-formative (UN/ISDR 2010). Recovery represents a fundamental 37 dimension of disaster resilience, includes both the possibilities o return to normal, that is, pre-disaster 38 condition, and alternatively, to be rebuilt or transformed to a completely different status. So 39 reconstruction, restoration, rehabilitation and post-disaster redevelopment are all considered to be the 40 parts of the recovery process, yet it is widely acknowledged to be the final phase of the disaster life 41 cycle (Tierney et al. 2001; NRC 2006; Peacock et al. 2008; Olshansky and Chang 2009). 42 In academia, recovery has traditionally taken on a more outcome-oriented conceptualization, with 43 emphasis on the physical aspect as seen in early studies (Haas et al. 1977). Researchers like Nigg then 44 began to point out that recovery should be conceptualized as a social process that “begins before a 45 disaster occurs and encompasses decision-making concerning emergency response, restoration, and 46 reconstruction activities following the disaster” (Nigg 1995). Some other scholars have suggested that 47 recovery can be defined as the “process by which a community has experienced a structural failure of 48 this sort to reestablish a routine, organized, institutionalized mode of adaptation to its post-impact 49 environment” since the disaster was often seen as a failure of social structure (Bates and Gillis Peacock 50 1989). These changes in the definition to reflect the shifts in conceptualizing disaster recovery in the 51 last few decades from a linear, static issue focused on the physical aspects referred to a specific set of 52 stages, to a dynamic, interactive, multi-dimensional decision-making process, including the 53 ‘reconstructing, and remodeling of the natural and social-economic environment by pre-disaster 54 planning and post-disaster actions’ (Smith and Wenger 2007). And the researches surrounding "disaster 55 recovery" have attracted more and more attention in recent years. Definitions of this term vary in the 56 literature, which are commonly used in the sense of ‘returning to pre-disaster conditions’, or ‘reaching a 57 new stable state that may be different from either of these’ (Quarantelli 1999). The new National 58 Disaster Recovery Framework developed by FEMA in 2011(FEMA 2011) define recovery as “those 59 capabilities necessary to assist communities affected by an incident to recover effectively, including, but 60 not limited to, rebuilding infrastructure systems, providing adequate interim and long-term housing for 61 survivors; restoring health, social, and community services; promoting economic development; and 62 restoring natural and cultural resources”. And community recovery emerges “as the outcome of several 63 sets of activities: restoring basic services to acceptable levels, replacing infrastructure capacity that is
2
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
64 damaged or destroyed, rebuilding or replacing critical social or economic elements of the community 65 that are damaged or lost, and establishing or reestablishing relationships and linkages among critical 66 elements of the community” (Alesch et al. 2009). 67 In recent years, much of the current disaster literature provides two major perspectives and 68 interpretations to measure recovery: (i) returning to pre-disaster situations; and (ii) obtaining a new 69 normal conditions (Chang et al. 2011). The first perspective and interpretation is conceptually based on 70 the comparison of the community conditions before the disaster and after the recovery process, and it 71 emphasizing on the rebounding as quickly as possible (Wildavsky 1991; Sherrieb et al. 2010). In this 72 regard, the pre-disaster situations are considered to be the normal state. The rapid recovery process is 73 designed to minimize losses caused by disasters (Alesch et al. 2001). The second perspective and 74 interpretation highlights how there is a new normal state after a disaster (Alesch et al. 2009; Chang et al. 75 2010). However, the ‘new normal state’ is more applicable to post-disaster attitudes and behavior of 76 human, showing the evolution of the collective psychology, than it is to physical recovery. Beside that, 77 some recovery indexes have been designed to track the recovery progress, such as the Social 78 Vulnerability Index proposed by Cutter and Finch (2008), Spatial Recovery Index (SRI) proposed by 79 Ward et al. (2010) and so on. These recovery indexes resonate with the fine view of the bouncing back 80 method in as much as these dimensions are critical to understand the post-disaster improved situations. 81 Nowadays, the research of disaster recovery is in the initial stage, more key research questions need to 82 be resolved: Why do some communities recover more quickly and successfully than others? Is there a 83 timetable for recovery? How does the recovery trajectory of communities differ by type and magnitude 84 of the hazard event, conditions of initial damage, characteristics of the community, and decisions made 85 over the course of reconstruction and recovery? How do different types of assistance and recovery 86 resources affect recovery? What types of decisions and strategies are most critical to recovery? How do 87 disasters affect communities over the long term? In the past studies, the idea of post-disaster 88 improvement is preferred by many scholars to the idea of bringing back to or regaining the pre-disaster 89 normality, especially when the disasters are occurring in developing countries, while the concepts and 90 practices of sustainable development and risk reduction are being integrated into disaster recovery 91 processes. The concept of disaster recovery is recognized as ordered, knowable, and predicable, for the 92 emphasis is mainly focus on the building environment. However, later studies have shown that the 93 recovery process does not follow a predictable timeline, and that the recovery process is increasingly to 94 multi-dimensional, including both physical (economic) and social-psychological aspects. The 95 determinants of disaster recovery are many, include socioeconomic status and development trends, 96 structural change and adaptation, disaster impacts and disruptions, post-disaster response efforts, 97 informal and formal external assistance (governmental and institutional capacity), and 98 macro-socioeconomic or program/policy changes. So the measurement of disaster recovery is a 99 complex construct, a recurrent problem is the lack of a simple, feasible and effective measurement of 100 disaster recovery. So in this paper, we proposed a new, practical method for measuring and
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
101 characterizing community recovery to earthquake in four dimensions, and applied it to Wenchuan 102 Community. The final products of our research provide insights for decision-makers to acknowledge 103 and understand the differential levels of community recovery in these four dimensions, in order to 104 maximize the overall post-disaster community recovery by prioritizing efforts, and formulating effective, 105 operational and valuable reconstruction strategies and policies.
106
107 2 Study Area
108
109 The Wenchuan Community (31°East, 103.4°North) in Sichuan Province of China was hit by a 110 magnitude 8.0 Ms (the surface-wave magnitude) and 7.9 Mw earthquake (Wenchuan Earthquake) 111 (Figure 1) at 14:28:04 CST (China Standard Time) on May 12, 2008. The Epicentral intensity of this 112 earthquake was up to 11 degrees, and the areas directly devastated by this earthquake were as large as 113 100,000 square kilometers. Wenchuan Earthquake is the most destructive and widespread earthquake 114 since the founding of the People's Republic of China, which affected more than half of China and other 115 Asian countries and regions. Up to September 18, 2008, the Wenchuan Earthquake caused 69,227 116 people dead, 374,643 injured, and 17,923 missing. Direct economic losses reached 845.2 billion yuan 117 ($ 133.2 billion). The Wenchuan Community as the epicenter of Wenchuan earthquake was the hardest 118 hit (Figure 2b). In Wenchuan Community, this earthquake left 15,941 people dead, 34,583 injured, and 119 7,930 people have been listed as missing. The Wenchuan Community was razed by this earthquake: all 120 infrastructures were completely destroyed, most buildings were severely damaged, many economic 121 sectors such as industry, commerce and tourism were suffered heavy losses (64.3 billion yuan ($ 10.1 122 billion) in direct economic losses).
123
124 Figure 1. Location of Wenchuan Earthquake
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
125
126 After Wenchuan Earthquake, Chinese Central Government commanded a large number of rescuers
127 (including firefighters, special police, volunteers and humanitarian relief experts) from all over China
128 and around the world to take emergency response measures. On June 8, 2008, "Regulations on
129 Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction" was promulgated, and the Chinese
130 government announced to invest 1 trillion yuan ($157.7 billion) to rebuild the affected areas over the
131 next 3 years. In the rebuilding and recovery processes, with the principle of "one province helps one
132 severely affected communities", 19 provinces and cities (e.g. Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Shandong,
133 Zhejiang, Beijing, Liaoning, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, Fujian, Huan, Hubei, Anhui, Tianjin, Heilongjiang,
134 Chonging, Jiangxi, Jilin) supported the reconstruction of 18 worst-hit communities (e.g. Wenchuan,
135 Qingchuan, Beichuan, Mianzhu, and so on) for three years. Just forced on the Wenchuan Community,
136 the reconstruction projects of the national plan are more than 4,000, with the total investment of 40
137 billion yuan ($ 6.3 billion) from 2008 to 2011. On the third anniversary of Wenchuan Earthquake (May
138 12, 2011), the reconstruction of the Wenchuan Community is completed, and the Wenchuan Community
139 is from ruins to prosperity (Figure 2c).
140
The aerial image of the
The aerial image of the
The aerial image of the
Wenchuan Community
Wenchuan Community reconstructed Wenchuan
before Wenchuan
after Wenchuan
Community
Earthquake
Earthquake
a
b
c
141 Figure 2. The development process of the Wenchuan Community in, during, and after Wenchuan 142 Earthquake (from May 12, 2008 to May 12, 2011)
143
144 3 Data and Methods
145
146 3.1 Data Sources
147
148 Data of the detail reconstruction or recovery processes of the Wenchuan Community after the 149 earthquake including population, economy, building and infrastructure are mainly obtained from the 150 reports on the work of the Wenchuan government from 2008 to 2014. Data of the recovery process and 151 status of the affected people are gotten by the random interview of 1000 affected families from all
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
152 resettlement sites. Other statistics and description data are gathered by combining different sources (e.g., 153 official statistical yearbooks, newspapers and media reports) following the Wenchuan Earthquake. And 154 the local information of the reconstruction processes of buildings and infrastructure of Wenchuan 155 Community, which are obtained by field surveys and interviews. After the earthquake, the government 156 made every effort to restore infrastructure services of the affected areas, and the emergency water 157 supply, telecommunications, electricity, and roads were recovered respectively on May 13, May 15, 158 May 17, and August 12, 2008. With regarding to repair and rebuild the earthquake-affected buildings, 159 501 reconstruction projects with the total investment of 22.177 billion yuan ($ 3.5 billion)are completed 160 in Wenchuan Community. From 2008 to 2011, reconstruction projects had been completed by 19%, 161 53%, and 94.7% in each year. In 2012, all of these 501 reconstruction projects were completed. These 162 all data were entered into a computerized database. This database was an important source of 163 information for measuring the recovery of the Wenchuan Community to the earthquake.
164
165 3.2 Defining the concept of community recovery to earthquake
166
167 The researches contain many major conceptual and measurement approaches to define and measure 168 community recovery. Community recovery, as the final phase of the disaster life cycle, continues 169 beyond emergency response, that might be taken in the immediate aftermath of a disruption until 170 returning to pre-disaster normality or transforming to a new stable state. This phase may take days, 171 months, even years, to accomplish; thus, requiring long-term planning. The recovery is a dynamic, 172 complex and challenging process that involves all sectors of a community, comprised of the impact of 173 disasters, households, business, buildings, as well the lifeline system (Miles and Chang, 2007). In many 174 cases, it is not even clear if and when recovery has been achieved because of varying stakeholder goals 175 for the community, for example with some wanting it returned to its pre-disaster status and others 176 wanting it to undergo change to realize a vision in which advances are made in risk reduction and other 177 areas. But most of all, the decision-makers of local governments mainly through improving the speed of 178 the recovery process to restore the operation of the interrupted business, and to rebuild damaged 179 infrastructure to allow the restarting of normal activities (Alesch et al. 2001). So the speed of the 180 recovery process can be defined as the key indicator of measuring the community recovery in much 181 disaster literature. In this paper, we define the concept of community recovery as the capacity of a 182 community to recover and rebuild itself rapidly to an acceptable level of functioning and structure 183 following the earthquake disaster occurs (Figure 3).
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
184
185 Figure 3. The the concept of community recovery
186
187 Since recovery begins when a community “repairs or develops social, political, and economic processes 188 that enable it to function in the new context within which it finds itself” (Alesch et al. 2009). When a 189 devastating earthquake hits a community, people are injured or killed, economy interruption begins, 190 buildings are collapsed, and infrastructures are disrupted. The ability of the community to carry out 191 recovery activities to minimize the immediate impacts caused by an earthquake. According to the 192 characteristics of earthquake disaster, and in order to better interpret all aspects of recovery of the 193 community, the community recovery in this paper is divided into four dimensions (such as population, 194 economy, buildings, and infrastructure): 195 (1) Population recovery 196 Earthquake disasters are becoming more complex and uncertain in recent years as a result of the 197 increasing populations living in seismic areas, which is considered to be exposed to a relatively high 198 degree of earthquake risk. So this would increase the population affected by earthquake disasters, which 199 in further can increase the pre-disaster extent of casualties. On the contrary, the trend of rapid 200 urbanization could induce a future of increased post-disaster population recovery (e.g. the growth rate 201 can be described as the population recovery in Figure 3). And benefits and restoration efforts are 202 distributed unequally in the recovery process amongst different sub-populations according to their 203 geographic locations, socioeconomic status, and different reconstruction programs. So in this paper, the 204 population recovery is measured based on the index of the average growth rate of the proportion of the 205 recovered population (e.g. the injured people were treated, the homeless people were placed) in the total 206 affected population after an earthquake disaster. 207 (2) Economic recovery
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
208 Economic recovery as a promoter of recovery, refers to making the best of the internal and external 209 resources that are available to speed recovery to return to a previous level of economic function at a 210 given point in post-disaster time. The local economic status determines how rapidly a community can 211 recover from such earthquake disasters (Lee 2014; Anne and Adam 2011). Continuation of trends that 212 have been concentrating on the increased significantly economic damage (EM-DAT 2012), while 213 increasing economic development has increased economic vulnerability to earthquake disasters, and in 214 turn a strong and diverse regional economy have direct influence on the recovery capacity to earthquake 215 disasters (e.g. the growth rate can be described as the economic recovery in Figure 4). So in this paper, 216 the economic recovery is measured based on the index of the average growth rate of gross domestic 217 product (GDP) of the affected area after an earthquake disaster. 218 (3) Building recovery 219 Building recovery refers to the capacity of a community for post-disaster building reconstruction and 220 retrofitting, which are often amenable to taking on board resilient technologies, given that they have 221 witnessed the effects of the initial threat. The resilient buildings can adjust to certain changes in 222 conditions to counteract damaging structural reactions in response to an seismic hazard. Buildings built 223 with adequate consideration of the earthquake effects that are appropriate for their location dominate the 224 exposure to earthquakes. And the application of earthquake-resistant building codes can make buildings 225 not be seismically vulnerable by helping to prevent or minimize damage to the built environment during 226 earthquake disasters. High-level building recovery is addressed in rebuilding and retrofitting these 227 earthquake resistant buildings (e.g. the rebuild rate can be described as the building recovery in Figure 228 4), which helps to build-in recovery and provide enhanced safety built environment for community. So 229 in this paper, the building recovery is measured based on the index of average rebuilding rate of the 230 collapsed buildings of the affected area after an earthquake disaster. 231 (4) Infrastructure recovery 232 Infrastructure recovery is the judgment to characterize the ability of the key infrastructure which is 233 threatened and disrupted by the earthquake disasters to recover function to the extent possible in 234 post-disaster time. The disruption of the infrastructure system in a major earthquake disaster as the 235 indirect economic damage of a community, suggests whether such community to be resilient, to what 236 extent. A resilient infrastructure system must be designed to continue functioning under extreme seismic 237 hazard conditions, which is a priority goal for earthquake-resilient communities. The capacity for 238 critical infrastructure to quickly restore services following an earthquake determines how rapidly 239 communities can recover from such disasters. Many researches rank the availability of electricity, roads, 240 telecommunications, and water supply as the top four critical infrastructure or lifeline systems that need 241 to function following an earthquake (O’Rourke 2009). A high rate of infrastructure deterioration may be 242 due to the poor quality, the aged equipment, and the highly exposed locations, while the development of 243 the infrastructure system is identified as a strategic priority to be essential to increase the recovery of 244 infrastructure (e.g. the recovered rate can be described as the infrastructure recovery in Figure 4). So in
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
245 this paper, the infrastructure recovery is measured based on the index of the average recovered rate of 246 the disrupted infrastructures of the affected area after an earthquake disaster.
247
248 3.3 Measuring the community recovery to earthquake
249
250 The approach taken in this paper for measuring community recovery is based upon the concept of the 251 disaster recovery triangle. Originally introduced by Bruneauetal, and extended by Zobel, the disaster 252 recovery is calculated by two factors: robustness (the strength of the system, measured by its ability to 253 resist the impact of a disaster event, in terms of the extent of damage suffered be cause of the event), 254 and rapidity (the rate at which a system is able to recover to an acceptable level of functionality). And 255 the disaster recovery triangle (in the form of the area above the quality curve) represented the 256 relationship between these two factors. So for example, the area 1 of the triangle (calculated by the 257 product of the extent of damage and the time needed to recover normal operations) can be interpreted to 258 assess the recovery of community 1 in Figure 5. However, in our opinion, using the disaster recovery 259 triangle to measure the recovery is not so accurate. Firstly, robustness as one factor of this triangle, 260 which addressed the ability to resist the disaster, is generally considered to be the extent of damage of 261 the community. Secondly, the disaster recovery triangle can not be accurately used by decision makers 262 to compare the recovery of different communities. For example, in Figure 4, if the initial extent of 263 damage (X2) is the same, the size of the area (Area 2(a)Recovery 2(b)) of the communities (Community 2(a), Community 2(b)). But if the 265 initial extent of damage (X1
269 Figure 4. The concept of the recovery triangle
270
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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-72, 2017 Manuscript under review for journal Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discussion started: 22 February 2017 c Author(s) 2017. CC-BY 3.0 License.
271 Therefore, to compare the recovery of different community, this paper extends the original concept of 272 recovery triangle and proposes a new recovery measurement to fit this paradigm. We use the recover 273 rate to measure community recovery (see in Figure 5). However, the slope of the curve is different at 274 each time point, and not a constant. For the purpose of facilitating the calculation, we use the average 275 linear rate to substitute the curve rate. We let X as the extent of damage to represent the percentage of 276 functionality lost, and we let t0(1) and t0(2) represent the time needed to recover normal operations. 277 Based on the principle of the equal area, the community recovery (R) can be measured as the slope of 278 the average linear rate ( is the angle of this line). The entire processes of calculating are as follows:
279
Area 1=Area 2= X t0( 2 ) → t ( 2 ) 2 Area1 → R tan X
(1)
2
0
X
t0( 2 )
280
281 Figure 5. The measurement extended from the concept of recovery triangle
282
283 4 Results
284
285 In the result of our study, with the community recovery measuring approach proposed in 3.3 (formula 1), 286 we calculate the recovery scores of Wenchuan Community in four dimensions (population recovery, 287 economic recovery, building recovery and infrastructure recovery), respectively (seen in Figure 6). And 288 three levels (low-recovery, medium-recovery, high-recovery) with the recovery scores of 289 [0-0.577](α=0º-30º), [0.577-1.732](α=30º-60º), [1.732-+∞] (α=60º-90º) are adopted in this study to 290 assess the degree of recovery. The results suggest that the recovery score of economy (Reconomy=1.15) is 291 minimum, and the recovery score of infrastructure (Rinfrastructure=135.19) is maximum. And the economic 292 recovery of Wenhuan which belongs to the medium-recovery level, the population, buildings and
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