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Creating social–physical resilience to natural disasters: lessons from the Wenchuan earthquake

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Abstract

Creating resilience is a proactive approach engaging with natural disaster reduction, which should be based on an understanding of the linkages between social–physical systems. Here we report a case study of Wenchuan earthquake, revealing that vulnerable built systems, degraded ecological systems, and socially disadvantaged communities were closely interrelated and largely existed in rural areas of inland China. This indicates that, while it is urgent to improve resilience of built systems, fundamentally, approaches should be adopted for rural dwellers to enter virtuous circles of economical activities as well as benign ecological cycles. Achieving these is challenging that will require systematic governance improvements in China. The lessons from Wenchuan earthquake suggest a research and policy emphasis on the interactions between social processes and ecological processes in inland rural areas of developing countries for enhancing physical resilience, which would facilitate achieving the mutual objectives on adaptation to earthquake-caused risks, weather-related disaster mitigation, and sustainable development.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks are given to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51379104, 51079070, 41071259, U1361103) and the State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering (Grant Nos. 2013-KY-5, 2009-ZY-7). Thanks are also given to the reconstruction group in Weizhou Town of Wenchuan County and the interviewed respondents for their contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Project Management and Construction Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Wenzhe Tang, Zhen Lei & Wenxin Shen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Wenzhe Tang, Zhen Lei, Enzhi Wang & Wenxin Shen

  3. Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jing Li

  4. National Commission for Disaster Reduction, Beijing, 100124, China

    Jing Li

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  1. Wenzhe Tang
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Correspondence to Wenzhe Tang.

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Tang, W., Li, J., Lei, Z. et al. Creating social–physical resilience to natural disasters: lessons from the Wenchuan earthquake. Nat Hazards 79, 1111–1132 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-015-1895-3

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