How Can Cities Adapt to a Multi-Disaster Environment? Empirical Research in Guangzhou (China)

Abstract

Urban disaster risk assessment is the most basic and important part of urban safety development. Conducting disaster prevention and mitigation on the basis of urban disaster risk assessment requires an understanding of the relationship between the city and the natural environment. This enhances the city’s ability to withstand various types of disasters and achieves the development of a safe city. Based on a review of the existing literature, we propose a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method for urban multi-disaster risk assessment. The multi-disaster risk assessment method includes the identification and screening of urban disasters, the assessment of individual disaster risk, and integrated urban disaster risks, the division of urban comprehensive disaster risks into several risk levels, and the determination of coping strategies. Taking Guangzhou (China) as an example, we determined the major disaster risks faced by Guangzhou, assessed the risks of individual disasters, and finally obtained the results of the comprehensive disaster risk of Guangzhou. Second, we analyzed the relationship between the disaster risk assessment and urban safety development, and proposed countermeasures and recommendations for the development of different disaster risk levels.