Building rural resilience in seismically active regions

虽然提高全球对地震的抗震力已成为一项重要的研究和政策议程，但大部分关注都集中在城市地区，特别是特大城市。尽管如此，农村地区仍占全球南部许多地震多发国家人口的70%以上，这表明农村居民将占未来地震风险人群的很大比例。农村地区特别脆弱，因为他们往往缺乏应对灾害的资源和专门知识。移徙和农村人口减少的模式，留下最没有能力减轻或应对灾害的居民，以及通过在城镇和城市外围扩大非正式的城市周边住区，可能会极大地加剧这种脆弱性。此外，对农村人口构成最大威胁的危险(如山体滑坡)不同于城市地区的危险(如建筑物倒塌和基础设施被毁)，这表明在城市吸取的经验教训可能不够充分。这项研究的主要目的是了解社区对全球南方农村地区与地震有关的灾害的看法，以及增加农村社区对地震灾害脆弱性的因素，以期确定目前在自然科学和社会科学领域的研究需求。具体地说，这项研究将：(1)确定当地人民对地震和山体滑坡灾害的了解程度，并探讨鉴于普通民众对日常生活的关切，如何最好地使他们参与围绕罕见的高强度事件的讨论；(2)确定增加农村社区易受地震灾害影响的因素；(3)利用各种情景和参与性练习，探索一套共同产生的解决办法或应对战略，例如微型灾害评估，供社区用来提高其抵御地震的能力；(4)确定在采用这些战略之前遇到的任何障碍或必须解决的研究空白。范围研究将集中在尼泊尔；该国可能会发生一次或多次大地震，非政府组织提高对地震危险的认识的运动到目前为止往往集中在城市地区，农村地区的实地研究表明，当地居民对地震的认识很低。与我们的项目合作伙伴NSET和卡丹巴里学院(国家社会工作学院)合作，我们将比较两个社区：一个是最近定居的城市周边地区，另一个是更偏远的农村社区。该项目的主要成果将是查明当前的研究需要和将阻碍在社区一级实施有效的复原力措施的差距。当结合对地震危险和伴随大地震的许多次生危险的新研究时，我们的项目将提供指导，指导如何最好地将对地震的科学理解与如何与之共处的当地知识结合起来。

While increasing resilience to earthquakes around the globe has become a major research and policy agenda, much of the focus has been on urban areas, and megacities in particular. Despite this, rural areas still contain more than 70% of the population of many earthquake-prone countries in the Global South, indicating that rural residents will make up a significant proportion of those exposed to future earthquakes. Rural areas are particularly vulnerable because they often lack the resources and expertise to respond to disasters. This vulnerability may be greatly enhanced by patterns of migration and rural depopulation, leaving behind those residents who are least able to mitigate or respond to disasters; and through the expansion of informal, peri-urban settlements, on the periphery of towns and cities. In addition, the hazards that pose the greatest threat to rural populations (such as landsliding) differ from those in urban areas (such as building collapse and the destruction of infrastructure) suggesting that the transfer of lessons learned in cities may be inadequate. The main aims of this study are to understand community perception of earthquake-related hazard in rural areas of the Global South, and the factors increasing the vulnerability of rural communities to seismic hazards, with a view to identifying current research needs across the physical and social sciences. Specifically, this study will (1) determine the extent of local understanding of earthquake and landslide hazard, and explore how, given lay people's everyday livelihood concerns, to best engage them in discussions around rare high-magnitude events; (2) identify the factors that increase the vulnerability of rural communities to seismic hazards; (3) use scenarios and participatory exercises to explore a set of co-produced solutions or coping strategies, such as micro-scale hazard assessment, that communities might use to enhance their resilience to earthquakes; and (4) identify any barriers to their uptake or research gaps that must be addressed before these strategies can be implemented. The scoping study will focus on Nepal; a country where one or more great earthquakes may be overdue, where campaigns by NGOs to raise awareness of earthquake hazards have tended so far to focus on urban areas, and where field research in rural areas suggests that there is minimal earthquake awareness among local populations. Working with our project partners NSET and Kadambari College (National School of Social Work), we will compare two communities: a recently-settled, peri-urban area and a more remote, established rural community. The primary outcome of the project will be the identification of current research needs and the gaps that will prevent implementation of effective resilience measures at the community level. When combined with new research on earthquake hazards and the many secondary perils that accompany large earthquakes, our project will provide guidance for how best to merge scientific understanding of earthquakes with local knowledge of how to live with them.