Historic Inequities in Disaster Losses: Identifying Disaster-Prone Places

本项目以县为分析单位，考察了过去50年来美国灾害事件和损失的时空模式。主要目的是评估这些损失是否在空间和社会群体中均匀分布，以确定某些区域和社会群体是否比其他区域和社会群体受影响更大。提出了三个广泛的研究问题：(1)灾害事件和损失随时间的时空变化是什么？是否有些地方比其他地方更容易发生灾害？这是由于一个具有巨大直接损失的单一事件，还是更小、更频繁的事件的函数，这些事件的累积损失增加了更大的金额？(2)易发灾害地区与非易发灾害地区的广泛人口特征是否存在差异？容易发生灾害的地方更有可能是低收入和少数民族，还是中等/高收入的白人居民？(3)损失的影响是否因地而异？如果有，哪里的负担最大，为什么？什么样的社会历史进程（例如，人口变化、移民、城市化）可以帮助解释观察到的不平等模式？

Using counties as the unit of analysis, this project examines the spatial and temporal patterning of disaster events and losses in the United States for the past fifty years. The primary purpose is to assess whether these losses are equally distributed over space and by social group to see if some regions and social groups are more affected than others. Three broad research questions are posed: (1) What are the spatial and temporal variations in hazard events and losses over time? Are some places more disaster-prone than others? Is this due to a singular event with large direct losses or is it more a function of smaller, more frequent events whose cumulative losses add to larger sums? (2) Are there differences in the broad demographic characteristics of disaster-prone versus non disaster-prone places? Are disaster-prone places more likely to have low income and minority populations or moderate/high income mostly white residents? (3) Does the impact of losses differ from place to place, if so, where are the burdens the greatest and why? What socio-historical processes (e.g., demographic shifts, in-migration, urbanization) can help to explain the observed pattern of inequities?