Monitoring of the reconstruction process in a high mountainous area affected by a large earthquake and subsequent debris flows

Abstract

Abstract. Recovering from major earthquakes is a challenge, especially in mountainous environments where post-earthquake mass movements and floods may cause substantial impacts. We monitored the reconstruction of Longchi town in Sichuan, China, over a period of 11 years, following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Seven inventories of buildings, land use, roads and mitigation measures were made by using remote sensing image interpretation and field surveys. Most of the buildings were rebuild by 2010 and reconstruction was completed by 2012. The total economic value of the new buildings in 2010 was much more than the pre-earthquake situation in 2007. Unfortunately, post-seismic hazards were not sufficiently taken into consideration in the recovery planning before the catastrophic debris flow disaster in 2010. As a result, the direct economic loss from post-seismic disasters was more than the loss caused by the earthquake itself. The society showed an impact – adapt pattern, taking losses from disasters and then gaining resistance.

Review on nhess 2019-202, Monitoring of the reconstruction process in a high mountainous area affected by a large earthquake and subsequent debris flows, by Chenxiao Tang et al.

“…done by Kappes et al (2010;2012a;2012b). Moreover, the overall literature provided is quite restricted to Chinese sources while in the international field many other studies exist on distinct aspects, such as hazard and risk chains (see Kappes above), hazard and risk dynamics (Fuchs et al, 2013) and general land use dynamics (Cammerer et al, 2013;Rougé et al, 2015;Fuchs and Glade, 2016), etc. So it is highly recommended to extent the review to the broader context of such international sources, which in turn would allow the international readers to better understand the situation in China.…”