Sustainability Evaluation Of Concentrated Rural Settlement Reconstruction After The 5.12 Sichuan Earthquake

Post-disaster reconstruction is the key in natural disaster management.The existing methods for rebuilding rural areas mainly include in-situ reconstruction,resettlement and concentrated rural settlement(CRS).In the context of new rural construction and urban-rural coordinated development strategy,CRS has gradually become the major trend of rural reconstruction.However,earthquake disaster usually suddenly occurs and results in huge damages to a wide area.Post-quake reconstruction work therefore has some characteristics such as limited time to rebuild,more reconstruction projects,and relatively higher construction standards.Reconstruction decisions in a rush may generate different impacts on the people's livelihood in the affected areas,which presents barriers for the future development.The 5.12 Sichuan Earthquake is about to mark the tenth anniversary.Therefore,it is necessary to systematically assess the sustainability of CRS reconstruction,identify key issues,and put forward effective countermeasures to enhance the sustainability of CRS.It is also a positive response to the strategy of rural rejuvenation put forth in the report of just finished "19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China".This study defined the sustainability of CRS reconstruction as "the CRS community after disaster should focus on continuously improving the quality of life and safety of the peasants in the CRS after the disaster.While meeting the needs of the peasants' production and living,they would not damage the survival needs of future generations." Based on the theories of disaster management,sustainable development and resource reorganization,the litetarure review found that there was a disconnect between the literature research and the practice exploration.The current studies mainly present macroscopic thinking while overlooking micro-analysis and practical recommendations.In addition,the existing literature fails to track the development trend of CRS in the background of new countryside construction in a timely and effective way.A small number of studies on the CRS mainly focus on the phenomenon of CRS,investigation of rural villagers' satisfaction,planning methods,which adopt theoretical description.The understanding on CRS reconstruction is unclear due to lacking systematic post-evaluation and objective sustainable evaluation method.Such research gap presents barriers for summing up and inheriting relevant experiences and lessons of CRS reconstruction.In order to fill the research gap,the thesis took Dujiangyan,an extremely hardest hit area in the 5.12 Sichuan Earthquake,as an example to evaluate the sustainability of CRS reconstruction.On the basis of analyzing the characteristics of the sustainability of CRS reconstruction,this paper constructed the evaluation indicator system of the sustainability of CRS from five aspects,e.g.,economic development,social development,ecological development,humanistic development and disaster prevention and mitigation.The sustainable evaluation indicators of CRS reconstruction were further determined through literature review and questionnaire survey.Then,based on the evaluation indicators,data from four typical case villages of Luchi Village,Huaxi Village,Chengqing Village and Shiqiao Village were collected through interview and questionnaire survey.The thesis further established a scientific sustainability evaluation model with the full permutation polygon synthetic indicator(FPPSI)method to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of sustainability.The thesis finds that the sustainability performance of the four case villages gradually improved,although there may be some fluctations.Although the four villages have different sustainability performances of CRS reconstruction,some common problems have been identified.For economic development,the cost of living of peasants increases faster than that of income;the individual's own economic development capacity is insufficient,and industrial support is insufficient.Asymmetric information is faced in social development,leading to more land disputes,and inadequate social welfare.The problems of ecological development are mainly manifested in the low utilization rate of land,the low multiplication index of land,the decrease of living space per capita,the increase of electricity consumption of domestic water supply and the poor quality of sanitary environment.Facing the low level of educational and cultural development in the humanistic development,there is no cultural industry in the village,lacking spiritual and cultural life,and weak psychological counseling.In terms of ddisaster prevention and mitigation,geological hazards still occur while disaster information is passively disseminated with single and simple disaster education.In order to solve the identified problems,the thesis proposes that respective practical recommendations to enhance the sustainability of CRS reconstruction.Economic development needs to enhance peasants' sustainable livelihood,develop industrial specialization and broaden financing channels.Social development needs to promote participation of social organizations and enhance social security.Ecological development should solve the housing problem at first,develop circular economy,strengthen energy conservation and emission reduction and promote eco-agriculture and low-carbon construction.Promoting humanities development needs to pay more attentions to education,introduce talents,create cultural industries,enrich spiritual culture and promote fitness for all with psychological counseling.Publicity and disaster education need to be strengthened while geological hazards should be closely monitored.This thesis provides theoretical and methodological guidance for evaluating the sustainability of CRS reconstruction.It is helpful to identify problems of existing cases of CRS reconstruction and find out countermeasures to effectively enhance its sustainable development ability,which is an effective way to implement the strategy of rural rejuvenation.At the same time,the research findings are helpful to summarize the experience and lessons of CRS reconstruction from the perspective of sustainable development and guide the future post-disaster reconstruction and the new countryside construction within non-disaster context.