Abstract
Social capital provides a valuable theoretical framework for boosting disaster preparedness. However, the multidimensional and intricate nature of social capital poses challenges in its measurement. Achieving a balance between comprehensive and effective measurement of social capital indicators necessitates additional exploration, especially within the specific context of disasters. The current study utilizes the boosted regression tree (BRT) approach to identify key social capital indicators that influence disaster preparedness in rural disaster-prone areas of China. BRT is highly regarded for its ability to capture complex nonlinear relationships and interactions among variables, providing accurate predictions and facilitating interpretability for practical applications. Results reveal that geographic close social ties, social status, collective resources, non-farm employment assistance, gift exchange, interpersonal trust, and sense of belonging significantly impact disaster preparedness. The findings could offer valuable guidance to policymakers in designing targeted intervention strategies aimed at enhancing disaster resilience within these communities.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adger WN (2003) Social aspects of adaptive capacity. In: Smith J, Klein R, Huq S (eds) Climate change, adaptive capacity and development. Imperial College Press, London, pp 29–49
Adger WN (2010) Social capital, collective action, and adaptation to climate change. In: Voss M (ed) Der klimawandel. VS verlag für sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, pp 327–345
Alcorta L, Smits J, Swedlund HJ et al (2020) The ‘Dark Side’ of social capital: a cross-national examination of the relationship between social capital and violence in Africa. Soc Indic Res 149:445–465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-019-02264-z
Aldrich DP, Meyer MA (2015) Social capital and community resilience. Am Behav Sci 59(2):254–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214550299
Appau S, Awaworyi Churchill S, Smyth R et al (2022) Social capital inequality and subjective wellbeing of older Chinese. Soc Indic Res 160:541–563. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02340-9
Azad MAK, Haque CE, Choudhury MUI (2022) Social learning-based disaster resilience: collective action in flash flood-prone Sunamganj communities in Bangladesh. Environ Hazards 21(4):309–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2021.1976096
Bian Y, Zhang L (2014) Corporate social capital in Chinese guanxi culture. Contemporary perspectives on organizational social networks. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp 421–443
Bourdieu P (1985) The social space and the genesis of groups. Soc Sci Inf 24(2):195–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901885024002001
Bouma J, Bulte E, Van Soest D (2008) Trust and cooperation: social capital and community resource management. J Environ Econ Manage 56(2):155–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2008.03.004
Casagrande DG, McIlvaine-Newsad H, Jones EC (2015) Social networks of help-seeking in different types of disaster responses to the 2008 Mississippi river floods. Hum Organ 74(4):351–361. https://doi.org/10.17730/0018-7259-74.4.351
Chai L, Han Y, Han Z, Wei J, Zhao Y (2021) Differences in disaster preparedness between urban and rural communities in China. Int J Disast Risk Re 53:102020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.102020
Claridge T (2018) Dimensions of social capital-structural, cognitive, and relational. Soc Capit Res 1:1–4. https://doi.org/10.21202/1993-047x.12.2018.3.553-568
Coleman JS (1988) Social capital in the creation of human capital. Am J Sociol 94:S95–S120. https://doi.org/10.1086/228943
Dressel S, Johansson M, Ericsson G, Sandström C (2020) Perceived adaptive capacity within a multi-level governance setting: the role of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. Environ Sci Policy 104:88–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.11.011
Elith J, Leathwick JR, Hastie T (2008) A working guide to boosted regression tree. J Anim Ecol 77(4):802–813. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2008.01390.x
Fatema SR, Rice K, Rock A et al (2023) Physical and mental health status of women in disaster-affected areas in Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 117:2715–2733. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-05964-5
Fernández-Giménez ME, Batkhishig B, Batbuyan B, Ulambayar T (2015) Lessons from the dzud: community-based rangeland management increases the adaptive capacity of Mongolian herders to winter disasters. World Dev 68:48–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.11.015
Floress K, Prokopy LS, Allred SB (2011) It’s who you know: social capital, social networks, and watershed groups. Soc Nat Resour 24(9):871–886. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920903493926
Friedman JH (2002) Stochastic gradient boosting. Comput Stat Data Anal 38(4):367–378. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9473(01)00065-2
Gao Y, Liu B, Yu L, Yang H, Yin S (2019) Social capital, land tenure and the adoption of green control techniques by family farms: evidence from Shandong and Henan Provinces of China. Land Use Policy 89:104250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104250
Gillespie J, Cosgrave C, Malatzky C, Carden C (2022) Sense of place, place attachment, and belonging-in-place in empirical research: a scoping review for rural health workforce research. Health Place 74:102756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102756
Hasan MK, Moriom M, Shuprio SIM et al (2022) Exploring disaster preparedness of students at university in Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 111:817–849. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-05080-2
He K, Zhang J, Feng J et al (2016) The impact of social capital on farmers’ willingness to reuse agricultural waste for sustainable development. Sustain Dev 24(2):101–108. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1611
He RW, Guo SL, Deng X et al (2022) Influence of social capital on the livelihood strategies of farmers under China’s rural revitalization strategy in poor mountain areas: a case study of the Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture. J Mt Sci 19:958–973. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6395-6
Heinkel SB, Thiebes B, Than ZM et al (2022) Disaster preparedness and resilience at household level in Yangon, Myanmar. Nat Hazards 112:1273–1294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05226-w
Hikichi H, Aida J, Matsuyama Y et al (2020) Community-level social capital and cognitive decline after a natural disaster: a natural experiment from the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami. Soc Sci Med 257:111981. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.057
Hsueh HY (2019) The role of household social capital in post-disaster recovery: an empirical study in Japan. Int J Disast Risk Re 39:101199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101199
Hu M, Xiang G, Zhong S (2021) The burden of social connectedness: do escalating gift expenditures make you happy? J Happiness Stud 22:3479–3497. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00341-6
Kawamoto K, Kim K (2019) Efficiencies of bonding, bridging and linking social capital: cleaning up after disasters in Japan. Int J Disast Risk Re 33:64–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.09.010
Kuang F, Jin J, He R, Wan X, Ning J (2019) Influence of livelihood capital on adaptation strategies: evidence from rural households in Wushen Banner. China Land Use Policy 89:104228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104228
Lee J (2020) Bonding and bridging social capital and their associations with self-evaluated community resilience: a comparative study of East Asia. J Community Appl Soc 30(1):31–44. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2420
Lin N (2002) Social capital: a theory of social structure and action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
MacGillivray BH (2018) Beyond social capital: the norms, belief systems, and agency embedded in social networks shape resilience to climatic and geophysical hazards. Environ Sci Policy 89:116–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.07.014
Meyer MA (2018) Social capital in disaster research. In: Rodríguez H, Donner W, Trainor J (eds) Handbook of disaster research. Springer, Cham, pp 263–286. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63254-4_14
Monteil C, Simmons P, Hicks A (2020) Post-disaster recovery and sociocultural change: rethinking social capital development for the new social fabric. Int J Disast Risk Re 42:101356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101356
Müller D, Leitão PJ, Sikor T (2013) Comparing the determinants of cropland abandonment in Albania and Romania using boosted regression tree. Agr Syst 117:66–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2012.12.010
Murti R, Mathez-Stiefel SL (2019) Social learning approaches for ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction. Int J Disast Risk Re 33:433–440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.09.018
Nakamura N, Kanemasu Y (2020) Traditional knowledge, social capital, and community response to a disaster: resilience of remote communities in Fiji after a severe climatic event. Reg Environ Change 20:23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-020-01613-w
Ngcamu BS (2023) Climate change effects on vulnerable populations in the Global South: a systematic review. Nat Hazards 118:977–991. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-06070-2
Norris FH, Stevens SP, Pfefferbaum B et al (2008) Community resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster readiness. Am J Community Psychol 41:127–150. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-007-9156-6
Partelow S (2021) Social capital and community disaster resilience: post-earthquake tourism recovery on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. Sustain Sci 16:203–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00854-2
Peng L, Lin L, Liu S et al (2017) Interaction between risk perception and sense of place in disaster-prone mountain areas: a case study in China’s three gorges reservoir area. Nat Hazards 85:777–792. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2604-6
Peng L, Tan J, Deng W, Liu Y (2020) Farmers’ participation in community-based disaster management: the role of trust, place attachment and self-efficacy. Int J Disast Risk Re 51:101895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101895
Pike F, Jiddawi NS, de la Torre-Castro M (2022) Adaptive capacity within tropical marine protected areas-differences between men-and women-headed households. Glob Environ Change 76:102584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102584
Putnam R (1993) The prosperous community: social capital and public life. Am Prospect 4:35–42
Putnam RD (1995) Tuning in, tuning out: The strange disappearance of social capital in America. PS Polit Sci Polit 28(4):664–683. https://doi.org/10.2307/420517
Putnam R (2001) Social capital: measurement and consequences. Can J Policy Res 2(1):41–51
Putnam R (2000) Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. In: Crothers L, Lockhart C (eds) Culture and politics. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp 223–234. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62397-6_12
Reininger BM, Rahbar MH, Lee M et al (2013) Social capital and disaster preparedness among low income Mexican Americans in a disaster prone area. Soc Sci Med 83:50–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.01.037
Sadeka S, Mohamad MS, Reza MIH et al (2015) Social capital and disaster preparedness: conceptual framework and linkage. J Soc Sci Res 3:38–48
Sadeka S, Mohamad MS, Sarkar MSK et al (2020) Conceptual framework and linkage between social capital and disaster preparedness: a case of Orang Asli families in Malaysia. Soc Indic Res 150:479–499. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02307-w
Shoji M, Murata A (2021) Social capital encourages disaster evacuation: evidence from a cyclone in Bangladesh. J Dev Stud 57(5):790–806. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2020.1806245
Sim T, Han Z, Guo C et al (2021) Disaster preparedness, perceived community resilience, and place of rural villages in Northwest China. Nat Hazards 108:907–923. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-04712-x
Szreter S, Woolcock M (2004) Health by association? Social capital, social theory, and the political economy of public health. Int J Epidemiol 33(4):650–667. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyh013
Tan J, Peng L, Guo S (2020) Measuring household resilience in hazard-prone mountain areas: a capacity-based approach. Soc Indic Res 152:1153–1176. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02479-5
Tan J, Zhou K, Peng L, Lin L (2022) The role of social networks in relocation induced by climate-related hazards: an empirical investigation in China. Clim Dev 14(1):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1877102
Toth R, Barrett CB, Bernstein R et al (2017). Behavioural substitution of formal risk mitigation: index insurance in East Africa. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ynrereuwdvzc897/IBLI_RCT_pub
Tse CW, Wei J, Wang Y (2013) Social capital and disaster recovery: evidence from Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Available at SSRN: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2440405
Tuan YF (1997) Sense of place: what does it mean to be human? Am J Theology Philos 18(1):47–58
Turner P, Turner S (2006) Place, sense of place, and presence. Presence-Teleop Virt Environ 15(2):204–217. https://doi.org/10.1162/pres.2006.15.2.204
UNDRR (2020) The human cost of disasters: an overview of the last 20 years (2000–2019). https://www.undrr.org/quick/50922
Visser M, Jumare H, Brick K (2020) Risk preferences and poverty traps in the uptake of credit and insurance amongst small-scale farmers in South Africa. J Econ Behav Organ 180:826–836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.05.007
Wang Y (2023) Disasters as opportunities for enhancing sustainability values: disaster experience and environmental awareness in rural China. Sustain Dev 31(4):2741–2757. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2544
Woolcock M (1998) Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework. Theor Soc 27(2):151–208
Wossen T, Berger T, Di Falco S (2015) Social capital, risk preference and adoption of improved farm land management practices in Ethiopia. Agric Econ 46(1):81–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12142
Wu B, Liu L (2020) Social capital for rural revitalization in China: a critical evaluation on the government’s new countryside programme in Chengdu. Land Use Policy 91:104268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104268
Xu D, Peng L, Liu S et al (2018) Influences of risk perception and sense of place on landslide disaster preparedness in Southwestern China. Int J Disast Risk Sci 9:167–180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-018-0170-0
Xu D, Deng X, Guo S et al (2019) Sensitivity of livelihood strategy to livelihood capital: an empirical investigation using nationally representative survey data from rural China. Soc Indic Res 144:113–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-2037-6
Yi F, Deng D, Zhang Y (2020) Collaboration of top-down and bottom-up approaches in the post-disaster housing reconstruction: evaluating the cases in Yushu Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China from resilience perspective. Land Use Policy 99:104932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104932
Yuan M, Yue-qun C, Hao W et al (2022) Does social capital promote health? Soc Indic Res 162:501–524. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02810-8
Zahnow R, Wickes R, Taylor M, Corcoran J (2019) Community social capital and individual functioning in the post-disaster context. Disasters 43(2):261–288. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12317
Zeren G, Lu J, Kerven C, Rang G (2022) Exploring the role of nested institutions in community-based tourism development: two case studies from China’s Tibetan pastoral region. J Sustain Tour. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2022.2154355
Zeren G, Tan J, Zhang Q, Qiuying B (2023) Rebuilding rural community cooperative institutions and their role in herder adaptation to climate change. Clim Policy 23(4):522–537. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2023.2184763
Zhao L, Yao X (2017) Does local social capital deter labour migration? Evidence from Rural China. Appl Econ 49(43):4363–4377. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2017.1282146
Funding
This study is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2023CDSKXYGG006), and the Chongqing Social Science Planning Fund (2022BS059).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by JT and LL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by JT and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Tan, J., Lin, L. Exploring key social capital indicators for disaster preparedness in rural disaster-prone areas: a boosted regression tree approach. Nat Hazards 120, 4159–4180 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-06392-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-06392-1