COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: The Resilient Rural America: Drivers of speedy and high quality recovery following a disaster

尽管关于抗灾能力的文献越来越多，但我们对农村地区抗灾能力的理解仍然有限。现有文献主要关注城市地区，并将农村地区定性为比城市地区更脆弱，而没有认识到农村复原力的可能性。此外，还缺乏注重农村地区脆弱性和复原力的可靠和一致的指标。本研究是对农村地区抗灾能力的科学研究。具体目标是：(1)制定一个创新的、多方面的、基于地方的脆弱性和恢复力指数，专门关注农村地区（简称农村脆弱性和恢复力指数或RVRI）；(2)从灾害恢复的角度（以1993年中西部洪水、1996年南部平原干旱和2005年卡特里娜飓风为例）确定脆弱性和复原力的后果；(3)为农村地区制定提高抗灾能力的政策方案。“韧性美国农村”项目通过提供有关美国农村地区灾害脆弱性和韧性如何随时间变化的新知识，大大提高了政策制定者和实践者的能力。它将帮助他们制定政策，减少每个农村地区的脆弱性，并在州和联邦层面做出更明智的资金分配决策，以减少准备、响应、恢复和减灾能力方面的差距。

Despite a growing literature on disaster resilience, our understanding of what makes rural areas resilient remains limited. Existing literature mainly focuses on urban areas and characterizes rural areas as more vulnerable than urban areas without recognizing the possibility of rural resilience. Furthermore, there is a lack of robust and consistent indicators focusing both on the vulnerability and resilience of rural areas. This study is advances scientific research on disaster resilience in rural areas. The specific aims are to (1) develop an innovative, multi-faceted, place-based vulnerability and resilience index with an exclusive focus on rural areas (called the Rural Vulnerability and Resilience Index or RVRI in short); (2) identify the consequences of vulnerability and resilience in terms of disaster recovery (in the context of the 1993 Midwest Floods, 1996 Southern Plains Drought, and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina); and (3) develop policy options for rural areas on enhancing disaster resilience. The Resilient Rural America project significantly enhances the abilities of policy makers and practitioners by providing new knowledge of how disaster vulnerability and resilience change over time and across rural areas in the U.S. It will help them tailor policies to reduce the vulnerabilities of each rural area and make more informed funding allocation decisions at the state and federal levels to reduce disparities in preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation capacities.