Urban Vulnerability Assessment And Analysis Of Influencing Factors Under Climate Change

The climate change marked by global warming has attracted the attention of Governments, international organizations and scientists since 1980s. Since then, many scholars have begun to introduce the vulnerability into the field of climate change research, especially2001 when the third assessment report from IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) gave a clear definition of vulnerability to climate change which gradually become a key and hot area of global climate change. Initially, the researchers mainly focused on vulnerability about natural environment, resources, agriculture, forest timber and so on. Laterly, they turned their research emphasis on natural resources and eco-environment vulnerability to human-earth complex system. The city climate change and coping strategies are regarded as the hotspots of global climate change by many governments, IPCC, UNFCCC, UNEP and other relevant institutions. Carrying out city vulnerability on the background of climate change could not only develop and deepen the application of theory related to vulnerability to climate change in urban scale but also scientifically guide the city to deal with climate change.The Ancient Silk Road was located in the arid and semi-arid areas of Northwest China with complex topography and landforms, poor weather conditions and fragile natural environment. In the history of human beings, however, it promoted exchanges of various cultures and economy, the prosperity and development of cities between Europe Asia as an important transport channel of the Eurasian continent. Sincel990, the cities along the Silk Road with rapid development have scaled out, and the population and property gathered due to the construction of the Eurasian Continental Bridge, thus they will suffer from more and more serious losses in the face of climate disasters. The frequency and intensity of extreme climate events mainly contribute to the urban extreme climate disasters, so regional climate change challenges urban disaster risk management.In this paper,13 cities along the Silk Road (beginning from Xi’an) are chose as the research objects, and indicators including the urbanization level, climate change condition, urban natural and social environment, economy, labor power, social capital, urban ecologic construction and contamination control. The data which are used to establish urban vulnerability index system. The weight of annual indicator is calculated by the entropy method, and the urban vulnerability and other element value are calculated by the comprehensive index method. Principal component analysis is applied to evaluate main influencing factors of the vulnerability of cities along the Silk Road. This paper classifies the vulnerability of the given cities and raises existing problems, and corresponding policy and recommendations. Conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1) The urban vulnerability index of the cities along the Silk Road increased from 2003 to 2013. The city risk index, one of the vulnerability factors, showed a rise first followed by a decline. And the interannual variability of sensitivity index is small, but the adaptive capacity index in 2009 as breakpoint, the first slow decline after the upward trend. The four greatest change cities were Baoji, Xianyang, Dingxi, Jinchang, respectively.(2) It shows a linear relationship between the vulnerability and economic development level of the cities along the Silk Road. According to urban vulnerability index, Xi’an, Lanzhou, and Urumqi, China’s first and second tier cities, have a low urban vulnerability degree, while Xianyang, Baoji, TianShui, Wuwei, Zhangye, Jinchang, Jiayuguan, Jinchang, Dingxi, and Karamay, the national third, fourth,and fifth tier cities, have a high vulnerability degree and a significant interannual fluctuation.(3)The vulnerability index of provinces along the Silk Road is:Shaanxi< Xinjiang < Gansu. The vulnerability types of other 7 cities in Gansu province except Lanzhou belong to the high risk, high sensitivity, and low adaptability, and their urban vulnerability value is high. The vulnerability index of Urumqi is lower than Karamay in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and they have different types. There is a significant difference on vulnerability index value and type among 3 cities in Shaanxi Province.(4) The results of the principal component analysis show that the first factor influencing the urban vulnerability is adaptive capability. The second is urbanization and social environment, and the third is city natural environment. Climate change is the fourth influencing factor.(5) The cities along the Silk Road are classified in several types according to the three factors of urban vulnerability, and then corresponding policy and recommendations are raised. The cities along the Silk Road should focus on improving their adaptive capacity to climate change in their future construction, such as improving the urban basic facilities construction, enhancing ecological environment construction invest and making the disaster prevention and mitigation done.