Assessing Livelihood Reconstruction in Resettlement Program for Disaster Prevention at Baihe County of China: Extension of the Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) Model

The paper develops a tool for livelihood recovery assessment in disaster-preventive resettlement. A new conceptual framework is built based on the impoverishment risks and reconstruction (IRR) model. This framework leads to a quantitative model that was designed and tested using the disaster resettlement preventive engineering (DRPE) project in Baihe county of China. The new model evaluates the qualities of livelihood recovery in terms of three components: Life reconstruction, development reconstruction, and safety reconstruction, which consider features specific to the Chinese society, and introduce a new insecurity factor. The model showed good reliability, validity, and sensitivity for the evaluation of livelihood reconstruction in disaster-preventive resettlement. Its application will help to target interventions to improve public services in resettlement areas by identifying cases with inadequately sustainable livelihoods.