EVALUATION OF THE LAYOUT OF EMERGENCY SHELTERS FOR URBAN DISASTER PREVENTION: A CASE STUDY OF BEIJING
GAO Xiao-lu1, WANG Kun-peng1,2, JI Jue1,2
1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Abstract Emergency shelters can provide effective protection for lives and properties of people when disasters happen. This paper analyzed the distribution and service quality of emergency shelters in the six central districts in Beijing and provided probable suggestions to improve the service quality. Firstly, to obtain accurate data on potential space for emergency shelters, NDVI index was used to interpret green space from remote sensing data. Secondly, in order to evaluate the service quality of emergency shelters, two indexes were used. One is service coverage rate, and the other is service area per capita. Taking night population distribution and the effective service ratio of the emergency shelters, the per capita space was calculated in each district and Jiedao, demonstrating that 50 jiedaos do not meet the official requirement of 1 m2 for one person. These provide insights for improving the efficiency of emergency management. In practice, vacant land are highly limited in large metropolitan areas such as Beijing, so it is more reasonable to make full use of the current emergency shelters than providing many new ones. Accordingly, several suggestions are proposed: ① raising the effective service ratio of emergency shelters should be emphasized, e.g., by keeping more open green space from constructions and water landscapes, especially in the very central part of the city; ② it would be useful to ensure the opening of public or private spaces such as school playground and squares for emergency use when disasters happened; ③ it is highly valuable to improve the emergency road signs and enhance trainings against disasters.
2013, Vol. 28 
