Fine-Scale Spatiotemporal Analysis of Population Vulnerability to Earthquake Disasters: Theoretical Models and Application to Cities

Abstract

China is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes and has suffered a high number of earthquake casualties. Therefore, it is imperative to develop effective methods for assessing population vulnerability in order to provide practical and useful information for pre-disaster preparedness and emergency management. However, there are many problems with existing approaches to assessing population vulnerability in China. This study developed a method combining dasymetric population mapping with population vulnerability indexing to estimate populations’ vulnerability to earthquakes at block level in daytime and nighttime. The method aims to provide high spatial-temporal resolution information on vulnerable populations and population vulnerability. In a case study of Haidian District in Beijing, we combined our population spatialization model with a population vulnerability assessment model and sensitivity analysis to efficiently identify areas with high population vulnerability, the location of vulnerable populations, and key sensitive factors influencing population vulnerability during daytime and nighttime. This information can be used to identify where and which aspects of pre-disaster mitigation, preparedness, and emergency response activities should be prioritized. It is expected that these methods will be used to analyze vulnerable populations and population vulnerability in other areas of China.

Review article: The spatial dimension in the assessment of urban socio-economic vulnerability related to geohazards

“…The surveys require significant resources, and the thematic scope is usually very narrow. These disadvantages can explain the strong demand for population data independent of administrative area, making it sometimes necessary to extract data from raster representations or using dasymetric mapping Yuan et al, 2019a). Currently, data in 3-D can be also extracted from VGI, which is an alternative source of real-time information based on the concept of citizens as sensors (Cervone and Hultquist, 2018).…”

“…Social vulnerability additionally identifies sensitive populations that are less prepared to respond, cope with and recover from a disaster (Zebardast, 2013), such as low-income populations, women, pregnant women, children under 5 years of age, elderly above 65 years of age (Bereitschaft, 2017a;Zhou et al, 2014), and physically and/or mentally challenged individuals (Contreras and Kienberger, 2012). Other vulnerable population groups are people with linguistic, cultural and spatial barriers (Eidsvig et al, 2014), such as migrants (Yuan et al, 2019a), rural population, people without post-secondary education (Bereitschaft, 2017a;Cutter et al, 2003;Eidsvig et al, 2014), high-density population (Cutter et al, 2003;Eidsvig et al, 2014) and public transport captives (Bereitschaft, 2017a).…”

“…Different weightings show varied spatial vulnerability patterns (Papathoma-Kohle et al, 2019); however, independent of the method applied, after comparing 106 studies for index construction with respect to risk assessment, Beccari (2016) found that the most common approach used (41.5 %) was the "equal weights" method. Eventually, the accuracy of SV assessment relies on the accuracy of input data (Yuan et al, 2019a) and not on the weighting method. After being weighted, indicators can be aggregated using additive, multiplicative, or decision rule models (Eidsvig et al, 2014).…”

“…Composite indicators have been commonly employed by researchers, planners and disaster managers for vulnerability assessments (Yuan et al, 2019a). Cutter et al (2003) have constructed an index of SV called SoVI ® for environmental hazards in the USA using a FA approach computed in a summary score based on an additive model.…”

Internet Public Opinion Risk Grading under Emergency Event Based on AHPSort II-DEMATEL

“…China is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes and has suffered a high number of earthquake casualties [42]. From 2004 to 2018, 446 damaging earthquakes with Ms > 5.0 magnitude have occurred in China.…”