Preliminary Study On Vulnerability Of The Urban Human Settlements In China

Great changes have taken place in China since the introduction of the reform andopening policy, fast economic development, rapid urbanization, improvement in people’sliving standards, which cause people to drive for improved livingconditions. However, in theprocess of urban high-speed development, the natural and social environment people lived inhas all kinds of problems, such as “smog” the problem of natural system,“difficult inemployment” the problem of social system,“traffic jams” support system problems,“hardhousing” living system problem, etc. The whole problems suggest that the urban humansettlements have vulnerability, which can seriously affect the development and stability of aregion.In view of the internal structure of urban human settlements environment, this thesisanalysis all kinds of factors included in subsystems,build the research framework and use I-Mproductionevaluation model,with31provinces in China as an example, to evaluate and gradethe vulnerability of urban human settlements.The results are follows:(1) Urban human settlements vulnerability is divided into two main levels: one is thenatural environment less affected by human–mother matrix Layer vulnerability, the other is isystem vulnerability consisting of sensitivity index which can damage environment andresponse capacity index to restore destruction.(2) In space, the vulnerability degree of mother matrix layer increases from southeastcoast to northwest inland gradually; the vulnerability of i system degree in east than that in thewest, the center in the middle vulnerability; the whole urban human settlements vulnerabilityin coastal areas is lower than it in the inland areas, in south is lower than in the north.(3) The main reasons for the urban human settlements vulnerability in China are asfollows. The diversities of natural conditions lead to differences of the mother matrix layer;the city problems caused by rapid industrialization and unreasonable urbanization are theefficient reasons of urban human settlements i system sensitivity; a period of national policyaffect the spatial pattern of the vulnerability.(4) There are many measures to decrease vulnerability like environment protection, thesolution of population problems in the urbanization, rational urban planning and complete andperfect social security system, etc.