Natural Disaster's Impact Evaluation of Rural Households’ Vulnerability: The case of Wenchuan earthquake

The relationship between Agricultural risks and rural poverty is always a central issue for anti-poverty policies designing. Natural disasters risk is a common form of agricultural risks in china. The paper estimates the extent that the natural disaster has impacted on household vulnerability in the stricken areas. To discover the different characteristics associated with vulnerability between pre-disaster and post-disaster, we regressed vulnerability against a set of geographical and household characteristics. The paper shows that although a relatively small number of household have average revenue below the poverty line after attaining the government post-disaster subsidy, a much larger number of households have a greater probability of being poor in the future. There are some different characteristics associated with vulnerability between pre-disaster and post-disaster. This research will explore the implications for the design of effective poverty reduction policy for post-disaster reconstruction in the case of Wenchuan earthquake.