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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1437416
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Change Vulnerability, Adaptation, and Human Settlements View all 7 articles

Exploring the Relationship Between Vulnerability and Adaptation of Rural Households: Disaster Resettlement Experience from Rural China

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an, China
  • 2 Department of Biology, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In the face of environmental deterioration and to improve human welfare, China’s Shaanxi provincial government has launched one of the largest disaster shelter and resettlement projects in history. In assessing the likely success of this project, it is important to measure the vulnerability and adaptation of rural households in areas where the population experiences ecological and livelihood vulnerability. Based on 657 rural questionnaires collected in southern Shaanxi relocation zones, this study explores four categories of relationship between vulnerability and adaptation based on two aspects of livelihood resilience, namely specific resilience and general resilience. A multinomial logistic regression model is employed to investigate the influence of disaster resettlement on these categories. The analysis finds that: (1) there is a connection between these categories and household livelihood strategies, and rural households are more likely to adopt non-agricultural strategy or livelihood diversification strategy; (2) the livelihood resilience of relocated households is significantly higher than that of non-relocated household, with specific resilience being the main reason for the difference; (3) participation in disaster resettlement, centralized resettlement, and high relocation subsidies are not conducive to belonging in the “low vulnerability–high adaptation” category, while voluntary relocation is conducive to being in this category. These results have significant ramifications for China and other developing national disaster resettlement programs. It is critical for resettled households to reduce livelihood vulnerability and improve adaptive capacity.

    Keywords: adaptation, Disaster resettlement, Livelihood resilience, Rural households, Vulnerability

    Received: 23 May 2024; Accepted: 01 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Duan and Feldman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Wei Liu, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an, China

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