Premium
A study of farmers' flood perceptions based on the entropy method: an application from Jianghan Plain, China
Author(s) -
Luo Xiaofeng,
Lone Todd,
Jiang Songying,
Li Rongrong,
Berends Patrick
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/disa.12167
Subject(s) - flood myth , floodplain , perception , china , geography , socioeconomics , flood prevention , flood mitigation , 100 year flood , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , psychology , engineering , cartography , economics , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , neuroscience
Using survey data from 280 farmers in Jianghan Plain, China, this paper establishes an evaluation index system for three dimensions of farmers' flood perceptions and then uses the entropy method to estimate their overall flood perception. Farmers' flood perceptions exhibit the following characteristics: (i) their flood‐occurrence, flood‐prevention, and overall flood perceptions gradually increase with age, whereas their flood‐effects perception gradually decreases; (ii) their flood‐occurrence and flood‐effects perceptions gradually increase with a higher level of education, whereas their flood‐prevention perception gradually decreases and their overall flood perception shows nonlinear change; (iii) flood‐occurrence, flood‐effects, and overall flood perceptions are higher among farmers who serve in public offices than among those who do not do so; (iv) the flood‐occurrence, flood‐effects, and overall flood perceptions of farmers who work off‐farm are higher than those of farmers who work solely on‐farm, contrary to the flood‐prevention perception; and (v) the flood‐effects and flood‐prevention perceptions of male farmers are lower than those of female farmers, but the flood‐occurrence and overall flood perceptions of male farmers are higher than those of female farmers.