Evaluation Of Social Vulnerability To Natural Disasters Of Xinjiang

The natural disaster is the product of interaction between nature and socio-economic activities. It is accompanied by changes of the social transformation. Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region belongs to the interior provinces, which is located in Northwest China. There are both rolling mountainous and endless desert in this region. It is high in west-north area while east-south is low. Because of combined effect of specific geographical environment and the prevailing westerly winds, Xinjiang is among regions where natural disasters occur frequently in China.To begin with, in order to improve the capacity of disaster prevention and mitigation in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, this paper analyzes the topography, climate and other natural conditions of the natural disasters in Xinjiang and deals with the social factors of natural disasters from impacts of economic activities of human society on natural disasters. Through the collection of statistics of all regions in Xinjiang, social vulnerability to natural disasters in Xinjiang is calculated and evaluated the, which provides theoretical basis for disaster prevention and mitigation. The results are as follows. The social vulnerability in Urmqi is lowest, while that in Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture the highest.The areas with higher values of vulnerability are mainly south of the Tianshan Mountains, while Urumqi and Karamay with lower values are located in northern Tianshan Mountains. Urumqi and Karamay are relatively more developed economically with rapid pace of urban construction, own better infrastructures and measures of social health insurance and social security which cover a wider range of radiation, which makes people have better capacities in disaster resilience and disaster recovery in the face of disaster and the region with low vulnerability.In Southern Tianshan natural environment and climate are relatively worse with China's largest desert - the Taklamakan desert where more than half areas are desert, which hamper the urban development; the region has typical characteristics of agricultural society with uneven social development and higher proportion of agricultural population; and it lags behind in education and culture, most population are ethnic minority populations, and less contact with the outside world, and hasn't broken the traditional production and life styles. The difference of social structure and development level is resulted from the historal and current level of development in Xinjiang, which result the differences in social vulnerability, and affected the ability of local disaster relief.