Microsoft Word - A Study on Residents’ Risk Perception in Abrupt Geological Hazard

A Study on Residents’ Risk Perception in Abrupt Geological Hazard*

Anping Pan
College of Architectural and Civil Engineering, Wenzhou University

Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325035, P.R. China
E-mail: pananping@sohu.com

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased frequency and severity of natural disasters, such as typhoons, landslides,
earthquakes, etc., now killing and injuring millions of people every year and causing mounting economic losses.
The greater tragedy is that many of the losses due to disasters could have been averted. In order to reduce the abrupt
geological hazards’ casualties effectively in remote mountain areas, local citizens’ attitudes of disaster prevention
and precaution play an important role and cannot be ignored. This study conducted questionnaire survey to
understand their disaster perception and actual evacuation behaviors, and aimed to discuss the special geographic
environment and social structure of Qingyuan County in East China's Zhejiang province, investigated the outcrops
in areas vulnerable to disasters, and conducts a survey on locals in Shimuxia, Pingtou, Zhangcun, and Tanggen
villages. The researcher attempted to understand local people’s cognition of and reaction to landslides, mudflows,
and other natural disasters as well as hazard perception and coping behaviors. The research results were expected to
serve as a reference for the government or local authorities to prepare anti-disaster risk management.

Keywords: abrupt geological hazard; risk perception; mountainous area; coping behavior.

* This material is based upon work funded by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. Y5110022

1. Introduction

Along with global climate changes, environmental
degradation and its own economic takeoff and
population explosion, people and the environment are
increasingly suffering from the effects of natural
disasters. Although there are some engineering methods
to prevent natural disasters, there is no perfect method
because natural phenomena often exceed the assumption.
China is one of the most geological and meteorological
disaster prone countries of the world. The abrupt
geological disasters such as rock avalanches, landslide,
mud-rock flows, etc. can be easily triggered by a variety
of external stimulus, such as intense rainfall, earthquake
shaking, water level change, storm waves or rapid
stream erosion. The disasters lead to destroying roads,
ruining residential area, blocking rivers and resulting in

enormous property damage in terms of both direct and
indirect costs each year. There is growing scientific
evidence that risks due to geological disasters have
become increasingly, especially in mountainous regions.
Because young people leave mountainous areas and go
to towns, declining population and aging become
serious problems in mountains. And destruction of
mountain forests or inappropriate farming practices can
accelerate erosion and expose land to the risk of
landslides, floods and avalanches. When a disaster
happens in such areas, the damage would be serious due
to the barrier for delivering rescues resources and
ineffectively dissemination of disaster related
information. People would be besieged in the villages
and couldn’t evacuate to safe places, and saving goods
also couldn’t transport to the villages, rescue efforts
would be hampered by bad weather, treacherous

Journal of Risk Analysis and Crisis Response, Vol. 2, No. 1 (May 2012), 44-55

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Administrateur
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Received 15 February 2012

Administrateur
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Accepted 12 March 2012

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PAN Anping

mountain terrain. This implicates that prevention
measures are barely carried out and people in
emergency situations can’t be rescued due to
insufficient capacities in basic rescue and to the absence
of a mountain rescue system.
Mountainous areas in East China's Zhejiang Province
typically have steep topographies, and are therefore
vulnerable to typhoons, landslides and debris flows. For
instance, in 2004, Typhoon Rananim caused countless
casualties to the Longxi Township, Yueqing City; and
Typhoon Saomai in 2006 also caused numerous
causalities and landslides. Thereafter, residents in
hillside areas began paying attention to natural disasters.
In response to the public's growing concerns over
landslides and debris flows, the national governments at
all levels have launched many programs aimed at
disaster mitigation. Although great progresses have
been reached in the field of abrupt geological hazard
prediction and warning, many shortages still exist now,
such as: the operation of excavation has not taken into
consideration the willingness and behavior of the
excavated. The lack of knowledge attributed from the
studies referring to the recognition of risk, needs, and
behavioral pattern of evacuees make the decisions made
by authorities sometimes turn aside from the reality.
Under this circumstance, the government and disaster
managers need to study the residents' population
characteristics and their behavior in emergencies.
When it comes to conceptualizing the idea of disaster
prevention and rescue, people often emphasize on the
rescuing and rebuilding after the disaster. Experts on
disaster relief have increasingly called for a greater
emphasis on prevention as opposed to relief. The
government as well as public bodies have also
reinforced measures and policies to prevent disasters. In
recent years, The Chinese governments at all levels
have made great efforts in undertaking disaster-
reduction projects, improving disaster early warning and
emergency response, enhancing sci-tech support,
strengthening personnel training and disaster reduction
work in communities. Disaster risk management needs
to be motivated and based within governmental
responsibilities, but its success cannot be accomplished
without the benefits of widespread decision-making and
the participation of many others. The public awareness
of risk is therefore a necessary condition to engage in
disaster risk reduction. People are more vulnerable

when they are not aware of the hazards that pose a
threat to their lives and assets. Levels of risk awareness
depend largely upon the quantity and quality of
available information and on the difference in people’s
perceptions of risk.
Risk perception among others is an important
determinant of the behavior towards risks, e.g. for the
decision to take preventive measures. If risk perception
of people living in risk prone areas is known, effective
information strategies on protective measures can be
designed. Since G.F. White's (1945) pioneering work,
risk perception has been the central focus for many
social scientists interested in natural hazard and disaster
studies. The choice of adjustment basically depends on
how people perceive threats and the associated risks for
themselves. Although risk perception is not sufficient
for predicting successful evacuation, it is an important
variable in determining the effectiveness of proposed
evacuation projects.
There is a diverse literature on risk perceptions and
coping capacities that has significantly contributed to
our understanding of how population’s act and cope
faced with geological hazard-related risks in the last
decades, for example, Geographer R. Kates (1971) first
lists a number of factors that may affect risk perception
and develop this into a human ecological model of
human adjustment to natural hazards. First are the
nature and features of the natural hazard involved
including its magnitude, duration, frequency and
temporal spacing. Second are the frequency and
intensity of personal experience of past, similar, events.
Finally, personality actors like fate control, different
views of Nature and the tolerance of dissonance-
creating information are significant. And these factors
are independent from the socio-economic environment.
Mileti (1993) underlines that people respond to a risk or
hazard in ways consistent to their perception of that risk.
It is their perception that influences behavior or action.
Lindell and Perry (1993) argue that understanding
public perception of natural hazards is necessary in
order to impact hazard preparedness, and can be a
problem because residents of at risk areas often have
inaccurate beliefs about the hazard agent and its impacts,
are unaware of available adjustments, and may have
erroneous beliefs about the effectiveness of the
adjustments of which they are aware. Janis and Mann
(1977) prove that adaptive actions are motivated by

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Study on the residents’

awareness of the hazard, knowledge of how it can affect
the community, and feelings of personal vulnerability to
the potential consequences. In china, there are relatively
few researches on perception of risk and short of
thorough and systematic research at present. Zhouqi et
al. (2008) take Shangbaiyun Village, Taibai County as
example, and studies on the natural disaster perception
of village in a mountainous area. Sunlili et al. (2010)
explore factors of influence on refuge behavior of
mountainous area masses from typhoon disaster.
Hence, to know the hazard cognition of the residents in
remote mountain area is conducive to the effective
development of disaster reduction education. This paper
will use methods from some disaster management
theories and literatures to study the disaster
management problems. Residents’ attention to
geological hazards, awareness of disaster prevention,
disaster theoretical knowledge, knowledge of
emergency behavior and views on disaster risk
reduction education are studied through questionnaire
investigation. The purpose of this study is to provide the
authorities concerned with results and suggestions
which can be helpful in the future planning.

2. Study Areas

2.1. Qingyuan County background

Qingyuan County is located in Southwest Zhejiang
Province near the border between Zhejiang and Fujian.
It lies between 27°25′ and 27°51′ north latitude and
118°50′ and 119°30′east longitude (Fig.1). It faces
Longquan City and Jingning County on the north. With
an extensive hinterland in the rear, it shares borders with
Fujian Province on three directions of east, south and
west. The County is 67km across from east to west and
about 49km from north to south, and about 1898 km2 in
the area. Qingyuan is a key forestry county with rich
forest resources. The county is composed of 85.5%
mountains, 1.2% surface water, 5.6% farmlands, and
7.7% roads, villages and towns. It has high, clustered
mountains to the east, north and west, with the altitudes
ranging from 330 m to 1800 m. The highest peak,
Mount Baishanzu ranks second highest peak in Zhejiang
Province with an altitude of 1,856.7 meters. It has a
low-lying basin in its central-southern part, and capital
city in its center.

Qingyuan County has seven towns, thirteen countryside
areas, five residential areas and 344 administrative
villages and the permanent population under its
jurisdiction reached 203.6 thousand by the end of 2010.
The County has a subtropical monsoon climate with
four distinct seasons, with an annual mean temperature
of 17.6°C, and the mean annual precipitation is about
1721.3mm. From May to November, known as the
typhoon season, the rain is brought by the violent whirl
wind and that consists about 60% of the total rainfall. It
has a frostless period of 245 days per year.

2.2. Current situation of geological disasters in
Qingyuan County

Qingyuan is a main geological hazard area in Zhejiang
province where geological environment is complex and
geo-hazard occur continually. The types of geological
disasters are many and the distribution scope of
disasters is wide. The main ones are rock fall, landslide,
debris flow, land collapse. In recent years, affected by
extreme weather, earthquakes, engineering, construction
and other factors, frequent geological disturbances
caused serious damage to people's lives and property.
For instance, on August 11, 2006, Typhoons Saomai
made landfall with extremely strong wind and large
amounts of rainfall, and therefore the rain-triggered
debris flows hit Shimuxia Village of Qingyuan County

Fig. 1. Location of the case study area

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burying about 20 people, leading to direct economic
losses of more than 5 million yuan (Fig.2).

Based on field survey, the distribution of geological
hazards, geomorphology and geological structure,
disaster- point density, disaster risk as well as the
relationship between geological disasters and human

activities were precisely investigated, in 2011, the
Qingyuan government confirmed 168 geological hazard
places as disasters monitoring area, which threaten the
security of 17992 peoples and may bring about losses of
nearing 100 million yuan (Fig.3).

3. Methodology

People's beliefs about geological hazards and what can
be done to manage their consequences can be formed
and maintained in several ways. One relates to hazard
experience. Another involves informing people, usually
via public hazard education programs, about the hazards
they face and the measures and actions they can adopt to
mitigate their risk. In order to study the perception of
geological risks and its influencing factors, a survey was
conducted among persons living in affected areas of
Qingyuan County.

3.1. Questionnaire design and survey procedure

The questionnaire is designed to obtain information on
the public’s impressions of (1) what geological hazards
(i.e. the mudflow or landslide) are and where they
occur, (2) the threat from future geological hazards, and

Fig. 2. The scene of a debris flows at Shimuxia Village in
Qingyuan County on August 11, 2006

Fig. 3. Distribution of potential geological disaster points in Qingyua County

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(3) how to respond in case of an emergency.
The questionnaire had three categories of items:
demographic background, risk perception and coping
behaviors. Some questions were designed to give
information on demography and the socio-economic
context in which respondents live (e.g., age group,
gender, profession, etc.). Some questions were designed
to evaluate the respondent’s knowledge of geological
hazards; understand the respondents level of and views
on, hazard education; knowledge of any existing
emergency plans; communication strategies; and
general level of preparedness and responsibility in the
event of a crisis. In some questions, respondents were
allowed to select a single answer, while in others, they
could select one or more alternatives (see Section 4).
In July 2011, we conducted a survey in which we
interviewed a range of people to determine their general
level of awareness and knowledge of geological hazards
and risks in affected areas of Qingyuan County. The
research team was composed of 10 students trained in
the technique of questionnaires and working under the
close supervision of the author. We distributed the
questionnaire to 300 inhabitants living in Shimuxia,
Pingtou, Zhangcun, and Tanggen villages in the areas.
A number of criteria were used to select respondents for
the survey. The sample was stratified with respect to
age, gender, education, profession and geological
disasters experience. The local people responded based
on their understanding which is very much related to
natural disasters and disaster prevention. All
respondents were required to complete the questionnaire
on the spot, eliminating any chance to information from
other people or sources. The overall response rate was
90%, of which 255 questionnaires were properly
completed, for a completion rate of 85%. The main
reason for refusal to participate seemed to be lack of
available time (it took approximately 20 minutes to fill
out the questionnaire).

3.2. Sample characteristics

The final sample consisted of 255 responds (145
females and 110 males). The age of the respondents
ranged from 14 to 75 year, results for the total sample
(255) were divided into three different age groups:
23(9.0%) participants were 14 to 17 years old (minors
group), 197 (77.3%) were 18 to 65 years old (adults

group), and 35 (13.7%) participants were older than
65(elderly group). With regard to the highest level of
education completed, 36.5% (n=93) participants had not
completed secondary education, while 46.3% (n=118)
were junior high school graduates, 11.4% (n=29) were
high school graduates, and 5.9% (n=15) had some
university degree. Most of respondents (78.4%, n=200)
were farmers, the student population (which include
high school, university and recent unemployed
graduates) constituted 7.5% (n=19), the highly
scholarized population (state officials, teachers, doctors,
etc.) constituted 4.7% (n=12), and those in unskilled
occupations (drivers, traders, etc.) constituted the
remaining 9.4% (n=24).
Most of the respondents (n=211, 82.7%) reported at
least one direct involvement of geological hazards (i.e.
the mudflow or landslide) in the past, and their lives
were temporarily influenced in a negative way by
geological disasters; for instance, their children were
unable to go to school because their schools were
damaged by the landslides. 58.8% declared that their
relatives were injured or their assets were damaged.

3.3. Scoring rules

We recoded these variables as follows:
 Socio-demographic and experiential characteristics:

gender (male=1, female=0); age groups of
participants (minors=0, adults=1, elderly=2); level
of education (not completed secondary education
=1, junior high school =2, high school =3,
university degree=4); having suffered geological
hazard in the past (yes=1, no=0); having received
information about geological risks (yes=1, no= 0);
having participated in disaster preparedness drill
(yes=1, no=0).

 Respondent’s responses are presented based on the
different aspects of risk perception tested. For the
purpose of brevity, most of the results were
summed as percentages. It should be noted that for
some questions, responses may total more than
100% since respondents were permitted to select
several answers. And the others, Items were related
to overall feelings of self-worth/self-acceptance.
responses were measured on a Likert five-point
scale ranging from 1 to 5, with higher numbers
indicating higher levels of likelihood, severity,
worry, trust, etc.. And the format of a typical five-
level Likert item, ranging from ‘strongly agree’

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(score = 5) to ‘strongly disagree’ (score = 1). So the
point 3 on the scale marked a neutral position.

3.4. Questionnaire analysis

The collected questionnaire forms were analyzed by
using simple sorting procedures and basic mathematics
and statistics methods. Most of the calculations were
done in the computer using SPSS 13 and Microsoft
Excel software. Statistical tests were conducted on a
range of risk-related variables, with the significance
level determined at p = 0.05.

4. Results and Discussions

The results discussed in this section are based on the
255 questionnaires forms from the residents of sampling
areas. The findings from the questionnaires were
analyzed part by part. The detailed results are shown
below followed by discussions.

4.1. Hazard salience

Qingyuan County is stricken by a great variety of
natural hazards; earthquakes, landslides, mudflows,
floods, etc. How people respond to a natural disaster
occurring or in preparation for another is often a
function of their culturally-derived perception from
previous training, education, and experiences.

In order to determine the extent to which natural
hazards are on the minds of the residents, one of the
very first questions on the questionnaire asked them to
list the likely natural hazards to affect their living
villages (Multiple choices). As shown in Fig. 4, the
results indicated that natural hazards were foremost in
the minds of residents: 62.7% (n=160) indicated

landslides; 59.2% (n=151) indicated mudflows; 53.3%
(n=136) indicated torrents; 53.3% (n=100) indicated
droughts. As for the other natural hazards, rock fall and
earthquakes respectively represented 37.6% (n=96) and
29% (n =74). In studied locations, respondents were
emphasizing their own experience compared to other
risks or disaster they did not experience themselves, but
they got to know through Medias like television, etc.
In the investigation, almost all respondents, more or less,
knew something about natural hazard. But only thirty-
one percent of them took the initiative to learn while the
others just received the relative knowledge passively.
And the level of people's knowledge about disasters
reflects their abilities to deal with disaster information
and further shapes the awareness and behaviors of
disaster prevention and reduction.

4.2. Geological hazard risk

Once a hazardous condition is recognized it must be
evaluated to determine the threat or risk it presents. In
order to stimulate the imagination of the interviewees
and to highlight the lack of risk communication, the
respondents were asked what they thought the
geological hazards (i.e. the mudflows or landslides)
could do to them around the region.

The results (Fig. 5) demonstrated that most of the
population considers that their possessions and services
would be affected (houses, schools, water supply, road,
crops etc). Respondents identified major impacts caused
by the geological hazards as: destruction of farmland &
forest (76.4%, n =195); damage to buildings (66.7%,
n=170); destruction of major road (62.7%, n=160); loss

Fig. 5. Respondent’s perceived effects which impacted on
their lives from geological hazards

Fig. 4. Respondent’s perception of natural hazards which
commonly affect their villages

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Study on the residents’

of lives (54.9%, n=140); accidents due to panic (47.1%,
n=120) and; pollution of water (39.2%, n =100).

4.3. Hazard information

Effective disaster risk management depends upon a
series of related actions and the means to engage the
informed participation of all stakeholders. Exchange of
information and communication practices play key roles
in the realization of these activities. Several survey
items were designed to assess the amount of information
that residents have on the geological hazards they could
face, and to determine the most common sources from
which they had received this information. As the data in
Fig. 6 shows, 65.9% of participants said they had
received “insufficient” or “very little” information about
the effects of a potential occurrence of the hazards, with
very few people saying that they felt they had received
enough information.

Participants were then asked to indicate the sources
from which they received the majority of their
information about risks (Table 1). The results showed
the most common methods of receiving hazard
information. The respondents tended to choose
interesting and vivid ways to get disaster knowledge,
and publicity and education of geological hazards
knowledge played an important role in risk
communication. It indicated that 70.6% (n=180)
acquired the knowledge of geological hazards by the
mass media (TV, broadcast, radio, newspaper, etc.);
60.7% (n=155) was informed by an elderly person in the
village; with very few people (11.8%, n=30) acquired
the information from Internet.

Table 1 The origin that people acquire the information
of the prevention of geological hazards

Items
Percentage

（%）
1. Pamphlets, leaflets, and posters on geological
hazards which distributed by local government

50.2

2. Disaster prevention education and emergency
drill which be held in their villages

43.1

3.Village cadre, part-time geological hazards
monitor in the village

62.7

4. TV, broadcast, radio, newspaper, etc. 70.6
5. School education 23.5
6. Acquaintance, especially elderly person in the
village

60.7

7. Research Institute 19.6
8. Self experience 27.5
9. Internet 11.8

In the choice of platforms, the results indicated that
mass media was the best means of informing the
population of a looming crisis. It seemed that word of
mouth also was a widespread means of communication
of disaster information, while village cadre, geological
hazards monitors and acquaintances were commonly
mentioned sources. Comparatively speaking, as an
important place for popularizing the education, the
school did not play an important role in disaster
reduction education, the reason might be the lack of
corresponding teachers in mountainous areas, and need
to strengthen the faculty in the future.

4.4. Protective behavior

The public awareness of disasters is a state of mind after
people’s processing information and knowledge of
disasters and it will directly influence their attitudes and
behavioral tendencies. And disaster preparedness is an
essential element of the disaster management program.
Each type of geological disaster requires clean-up and
recovery. The period after a disaster is often very
difficult for families, at times as devastating as the
disaster itself. Families which are prepared ahead of
time can reduce the fear, confusion and losses that come
with disaster. They can be ready to evacuate their
homes, know what to expect in public shelters and how
to provide basic first aid. And be better able to cope
with the disaster and recover from it more quickly.
In order to evaluate respondent’s knowledge on
preparing for hazards, we developed a number of
questions which consisted of fourteen items (see Table

Fig. 6. Amount of information received regarding potential
occurrence of geological hazards (%)

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2), inquiring about the adoption of different behaviors to
reduce the impact of a crisis. The questionnaire was
introduced with a sentence inviting respondents to think
about a possible future geological hazard. Respondents
were asked to indicate whether or not they had adopted
each of the presented behaviors.

Table 2 Protective behaviors: items

Items
Percentage
（%）

1. Learn which disasters are possible where you
live and how these disasters might affect your
family.

30.6

2. Keep a readily available list of emergency
phone number(doctor, work, school, relatives)

33.3

3. Learn about your village's warning signals, what
they sound like, what they mean and what actions
you should take when they are activated

23.1

4. Attend a basic first-aid course 15.7
5. Develop a family preparedness plan which be
known to all family members.

24.3

6. Ask someone (local government, relatives, etc.)
information about what to do in case of emergency

17.3

7. Review possible evacuation procedures with
your family if you had to evacuate

46.3

8. Store water in plastic containers such as soft
drink bottles

32.5

9. Store at least a 3-day supply of non-perishable
food.

41.6

10. Keep a working flashlight and extra batteries
operated radio in a convenient place known to all
family members

47.8

11. Store important objects in a safe place 40
12. Store at least one complete change of clothing
and footwear per person

34.5

13. Make some changes to home 14.9
14. Purchase any kind of insurance against
geological disasters

34.5

Table 2 depicted the frequencies of specific protective
behaviors adopted by participants in order to prepare for
possible future geological hazards. The behavior that
was more likely to be adopted by respondents was
‘‘Keep a working flashlight and extra batteries operated
radio in a convenient place known to all family
members’’ (47.8%, n=122), followed by ‘‘Review
possible evacuation procedures with your family if you
had to evacuate’’ (46.3%, n=118) and ‘‘Store at least a
3-day supply of non-perishable food.’’ (41.6%, n=106).
‘‘Make changes to the home’’ is the less diffused
behavior, with only 14.9% of the respondents adopting
this strategy. The mean number of adopted behaviors

was 4.35 (Std. Deviation=2.61, Min=0, Max=10).About
twenty percent of the respondents adopted seven or
more than seven behaviors, and 32.5% of the
participants adopted two or less behaviors. The results
showed that the residents’ awareness of geological
disaster risks was generally poor. Even in villages
where disasters had occurred relatively frequently in the
past, the public had often failed to demand the most
rudimentary protection. The development of increased
public awareness about geological hazards and the
understanding of disaster risks are vital elements in any
comprehensive strategy for disaster reduction. Public
awareness should be conducted through all possible
means, including in schools, in particular through the

media and other official, public, professional and
commercial means, at all levels of society.
On exploring the number of adopted behaviors by age
(Fig. 7), Chi-square values (X2 = 50.525, p = 0.002),
emphasize the differences in preferred protective
behaviors between different age groups. It was revealed
that most of the younger generation was inadequately
prepared for the impending disaster in normal. An
important way to deal with them is to strengthen public
education on disaster prevention, while the younger
have no strong awareness of disaster prevention.

4.5. Risk Perception of geological hazard

The risk perception category contained questions that
addressed the characteristics of the geological disaster
(i.e. the landslide). The items used in the questionnaire
and their key terms are listed in Table 3. Its required
respondents to make risk perception judgments
regarding the likelihood that a geological hazard would

Fig. 7. The number of respondents adopted behaviors by
different age groups.

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occur in their villages in future, the clearness of know
the mitigation actions that their can adopt, the severity
of consequences that such an geological hazard eruption
would cause for their lives, how serious the effects of a
geological hazard eruption might be for themselves and
their families, and how much they worry about a
potential geological hazard. All ratings were made on a
5 point scale, with higher numbers indicating greater
likelihood, severity of consequences, and worry. The
mean ratings of each item (with 95% confidence
intervals) were also presented in Table 3.
As shown in Table 3, on the first set of question, the
mean score was 3.29 (S.D. =1.08) out of a total of 5
(1=likelihood very small; 5= likelihood very large).
This indicated that villagers on average felt that a
geological hazard would likely occur at their hometown

in the following five years. The mean score of “Know
mitigation actions” was 2.70 (S.D. =1.38), which meant
that villagers on average did not know the mitigation
action clearly during a geological hazard eruption. In
the third item, the mean score was 2.66 (S.D. =1.16),
which showed that most of respondents did not think
they had the capable of controlling the hazard to avoid a
huge loss once a geological hazard occurred. In the
fourth item, the mean score was 3.22 (S.D. =1.02),
which indicated that it would threaten villagers’ life
serious once a geological hazard occurred. In the fifth
and sixth item, the mean score was 3.17 and 3.38
respective, which meant that if there was a geological
hazard eruption, the villagers would be affected the
quality of life and/or be brought financial loss serious.
And to the last question, the mean score was 3.34 (S.D.

Table 3. Risk perception of geological hazard and respondents' age: items

Key term Description of Scale Age group Mean Standard Deviation

Likelihood
In the village in which you live, how likely is it
that a geological hazard will occur in the following
five years?

All 3.29 1.08
14 to 17 years old 3.09 1.35
18 to 65 years old 3.35 1.06
older than 65 3.11 1.02

Know
mitigation
actions

If there is a geological hazard eruption, do you
know the mitigation actions you can adopt clearly?

All 2.70 1.38
14 to 17 years old 2.91 1.41
18 to 65 years old 2.64 1.35
older than 65 2.89 1.53

Able to
control

If there is a geological hazard eruption, do you
think that you are capable of controlling the hazard
to avoid a huge loss?

All 2.66 1.16
14 to 17 years old 3.00 1.21
18 to 65 years old 2.59 1.11
older than 65 2.83 1.22

Threaten life
If there is a geological hazard eruption, to what
extent does the hazard threaten your life?

All 3.22 1.02
14 to 17 years old 3.04 1.30
18 to 65 years old 3.26 .96
older than 65 3.14 1.19

Affect life
quality

If there is a geological hazard eruption, to what
extent does the hazard affect the quality of your
life?

All 3.17 .98
14 to 17 years old 2.87 1.10
18 to 65 years old 3.21 .96
older than 65 3.14 1.03

Financial loss
If there is a geological hazard eruption, to what
extent does the hazard bring you financial loss?

All 3.38 1.13
14 to 17 years old 3.30 1.06
18 to 65 years old 3.40 1.09
older than 65 3.29 1.41

Dread
In general, how afraid are you of a geological
hazard?

All 3.34 1.10
14 to 17 years old 2.83 1.23
18 to 65 years old 3.43 1.07
older than 65 3.20 1.13

Note: Ratings were made on a Likert 5 point scale, with higher numbers indicating higher levels of likelihood, severity, worry

and self-efficacy.

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=1.10), which showed that villagers on average were
afraid of a geological hazard in general.
In order to determine whether age played a significant
role in determining various aspects of risk perception, a
series of comparisons were made among four groups
(All, minors, adults, elderly group). The results of those
analyses which were statistically significant also were
presented in Table 3. There were no clear patterns in the
results of these analyses.

4.6. Correlational analysis

In order to determine whether the measures of Socio-
demographic and experiential characteristics used in the
study were related to the residents’ perceptions of risk, a
series of correlations were calculated among these
measures (see table 4).
As the data in Table 4 illustrated, in general, the
correlation matrix showed that when the values of know
mitigation actions, and able to control increased, the
values of “Threaten life”, “Affect life quality”,
“Financial loss”, and “Dread” decreased. In addition,
“Know mitigation actions” and “Able to control” were
positively correlated with each other.

Secondly, as regards the relationship between education
and the other study variables, we found that the value of
“Education” was positively correlated with the value of
“Know mitigation actions” and “Able to control”
(r=0.696 and 0.616 respective; p<0.01), and negatively
correlated with the value of “Likelihood”, “Threaten
life”, “Affect life quality”, “Financial loss” and “Dread”
(r=-0.544, -0.448, -0.372, -0.437 respective; p<0.01).
Finally, other significant correlations between the socio-
demographic and experiential variables examined in the
present study showed that having taken part in disaster
drill activities and personal disaster experience was
positively correlated with having received information
about the geological hazards (r=0.610 and 0.468
respective, p<0.01).
The above results indicate that introducing disaster risk
reduction strategies through the educational system is
one of the key successful interventions. Disaster
preparedness, prevention and response should be part of
the general education curriculum. People in schools,
villages and workplaces should be continuously
informed and trained to cope with geological hazards.
Training session in risk reduction for geological hazards

Table 4. Correlations between study variables (N=255).

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Socio-demographic and experiential characteristics
1. Gender 1
2. Age group -.086 1
3. Education .187** -.103 1
4.Personal disaster
experience

-.021 -.020 .101 1

5.Received risk
information

-.022 -.051 .072 .610** 1

6.Participate
disaster drill

.007 -.102 -.129* .223** .468** 1

Risk perception of geological hazards
7.Likelihood .066 -.011 -.544** -.098 -.016 .335** 1
8.Know
mitigation actions

-.139* .009 .696** .097 .028 -.247** -.816 ** 1

9.Able to control -.101 -.014 .616** .073 .019 -.274** -.882 ** .885 ** 1
10.Threaten life .073 .011 -.448** .019 -.048 .209** .722 ** -.613 ** -.690 ** 1
11.Affect life
quality

.036 .050 -.442** -.017 -.030 .233** .637 ** -.532 ** -.608 ** .744 ** 1

12.Financial loss .060 -.011 -.372** .005 -.094 .193** .583 ** -.506 ** -.572 ** .744 ** .588 ** 1
13.Dread .169** .052 -.437** -.009 -.012 .304** .746 ** -.662 ** -.721 ** .615 ** .494 ** .509 ** 1

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

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53

Study on the residents’

(i.e. the mudflow) complete with simulation exercises
and concrete preparation actions should be conducted in
mountainous areas.

5. Conclusion

The present study aimed to investigate disaster
preparedness and risk perception among a group of
people living in villages located in mountainous areas in
Qingyuan County, particularly exposed to the risk of
abrupt geological hazards (i.e. the landslides). The
results showed as following:
(1) The natural hazards in Qingyuan County were

foremost in the minds of residents in the following
descending order: Landslides, Mudflows, Torrents,
Droughts, Rock fall and Earthquakes.

(2) Respondents identified major impacts caused by the
geological hazards as descending order: destruction
of farmland & forest, damage to buildings,
destruction of major road, Loss of lives, accidents
due to panic and pollution of water.

(3) Most of participants had received “insufficient” or
“very little” information about the effects of a
potential occurrence of the hazards. Mass media
and word of mouth were the best means of
informing the population of a looming crisis.

(4) The mean number of adopted behaviors was 4.35
out of 14, which showed that the residents’
preparedness of geological disaster was poor.

(5) Villagers on average felt that a geological hazard
would likely occur at their hometown in the
following five years, and did not know the
mitigation action clearly during a geological hazard
eruption. They could not control the hazard to avoid
a huge loss and would threaten villagers’ life
serious once a geological hazard occurred. The
villagers would be affected the quality of life and/or
be brought financial loss serious, and were afraid of
a geological hazard in general. There were no clear
patterns in the results as age difference.

(6) The Variable “Know mitigation actions” and “Able
to control” were positively correlated with
“Threaten life”, “Affect life quality”, “Financial
loss”, and “dread decreased”. “Know mitigation
actions” was positively correlated with “Able to
control”. The Variable “education” was positively
correlated with “Know mitigation actions” and

“Able to control”, and negatively correlated with
“Likelihood”, “Threaten life”, “Affect life quality”,
“Financial loss” and “Dread”. The Variable
“Participate disaster drill” and “Personal disaster
experience” was positively correlated with
“Received risk information”.

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work funded by Zhejiang
Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grant No. Y5110022

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