关键词: 避灾搬迁, 搬迁意愿, 搬迁行为, 双重风险感知

Abstract:

In China a large rural population inhabits mountain areas where people are prone to a variety of natural hazards such as flood and landslide. In order to reduce disaster risks, the Chinese government has increasingly and extensively resorted to relocation of people at risk areas. Due to constraints for finding safe places for reconstruction of houses, distant relocation is sometimes seen as an expedient option. However, such resettlement programs, if not well planned and implemented, may incur relocation risks for those displaced, which include landlessness, unemployment, poor housing quality, indebtedness, marginalization, increased cash payment on food, adaptation of climate. Risk perception refers to the subjective judgment that people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. Existing studies show that attributes of risk and household characteristics may affect people’s risk perception, which may further influence people’s relocation decision-making regarding when and where to migrate. Taking the case of former Caopo Township in Wenchuan county in the southwestern Sichuan Province of China, using sample survey and in-depth interview with rural households, village leaders and local officials, this paper proposes the concepualization of ‘dual risk perceptions’-perception of natural hazard risk and perception of relocation risk: both having informed resettlement intentions and behaviors of people to be displaced. It is concluded that dual risk perceptions have significant and robust consequences on people’s intention to migrate, households with higher perception of natural hazard risk have greater propensity to migrate, while those with a higher perception of relocation risk tend not to migrate. It is also shown that dual risk perceptions have marked consequences on people’s migration behaviors: a stronger perception of relocation risks makes people more likely not to resettle their whole family while a higher perception of natural hazard risk will increase the possibity of people’s relocation from areas at risk; migration intention has significant consequence on behavior of those staying at their origin places, while those having no intention to migrate are more likely not to relocate; family size plays a significant role in people’s migration behaviors as larger families are more likely not relocate the whole family; family income only affects people’ behavior of those who do not relocate as those who have a higher income have a higher propensity to relocate; relocation risk perception is more influenctial than natural hazard risk perception for households whose family members do not totally relocate. Households who are reluctant to migrate show perception of higher relocation risk than natural hazard risk. This research reveals that, although preventive resettlement is planned and implemented for disaster risk reduction, people may apt to remain in areas at risk of disaster if they perceive higher risk arising from relocation. All in all, migration behavior of people living at risk of disaster is a complicated process concerning their perception of disaster risk and relocation risk, relocation intention and household characteristics. All these factors should be taken into account in planning preventive resettlement.

Key words: preventive resettlement, migration intention, migration behavior, dual risk perceptions