The impacting factors of vulnerability to natural hazards in China: an analysis based on structural equation model

The vulnerability to natural hazard is one of the inner characteristics of social economic system, which is determined and impacted by various factors from almost all the aspects of the system. Although it is widely agreed that the economic development, the migration, and the equity of resource allocation are among the most important impacting factors in forming and developing of the vulnerability, their interrelationship is still unclear enough. The study in this paper employs the method of structural equation model to discover the interrelationship between different latent impacting factors, as well as their contributions to the vulnerability of the system to natural hazards. It is found that, among the factors relating social and economic development, the equity of income allocation is a key point. Also the impacts from industrialization are different for different development levels. The conclusions are expected to be helpful references for the decision consideration of the local development strategies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012