Social Stability Risk Assessment of Disaster-Preventive Migration in Ethnic Minority Areas of Southwest China

Abstract

Disaster-preventive migration (DPM) is an important method for disaster risk management, but migration itself entails a potential social stability risk. This study took County D in Yunnan Province, one of the counties most severely threatened by geological disasters in China, as an example to construct an indicator system of social stability risk factors for disaster-preventive migration based on a literature survey and in-depth interviews. The system consists of 5 first-level risk factors and 14 s-level risk factors. The social stability risk of DPM in County D was assessed using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method based on experts’ weights. The results showed that the overall social stability risk level of disaster-preventive migration in County D is ‘high’. In terms of importance, the five first-level risk factors were ranked as follows: public opinion risk > compensation risk > livelihood recovery risk > cultural risk > geological disaster risk. Among the risk factors, the level of public opinion risk and compensation risk appeared to be high, whereas that of livelihood recovery risk, cultural risk and geological disaster risk resulted to be medium. To our knowledge, this paper is the first research to evaluate the social stability risk of DPM; it not only enriches the theories of social stability risk assessment, but also has important guiding significance for people relocation and resettlement in Chinese ethnic minority areas.

Exploring the Evolution Mechanisms of Social Risks Associated with Urban Renewal from the Perspective of Stakeholders

“…The research findings validated the interrelationships among the five categories of SRs (EDR, TR, OMR, PCR, and EER) and their impact on stakeholder interests [29]. This was consistent with the theoretical framework illustrated in Figure 1, which emphasized the interactions among these risk factors and their potential adverse effects on stakeholder interests, leading to stakeholder protests and government intervention, ultimately resulting in URSRs [28,51,56].…”

“…Upon reaching a critical threshold, the risk energy can be triggered by specific conditions and surpass the critical threshold, leading to the emergence of individual risk events [26,27]. If individual risk events are not effectively addressed, they may escalate, culminating in individual risk events or collective risk events, ultimately causing losses at project, public, and governmental levels [28].…”

“…On the other hand, external SRs are linked to external stakeholders and pertain to the social instabilities that emerge as a result of internal risk factors, such as potential environmental pollution in the area during the operational phase of the project [11,29]. Considering the implementation period of UR projects, the SR factors encompass land expropriation, building demolition, financial compensation, environmental impacts, relocation arrangements, and government policies concerning public infrastructure [2,28].…”

“…However, if the government fails to fulfill its responsibilities, it can lead to a crisis of public trust [28,51]. The spread of mistrust through the media can encourage more groups of stakeholders to take action, potentially culminating in large-scale SR events [29,45].…”