Investigation and analysis of the importance awareness of the factors affecting the earthquake emergency and rescue in different areas: A case study of Yunnan and Jiangsu Provinces

An index system comprising four primary indicators and 47 secondary indicators was constructed for earthquake emergency and rescue, based on recent earthquake disaster relief cases, relevant Chinese policies and regulations, and recent literature. Using a questionnaire survey and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), then an investigation method was designed to determine the importance awareness of the factors affecting the earthquake emergency and rescue. Finally, by performing a case study of two areas in China, i.e., Yunnan and Jiangsu, the similarities and differences in the importance awareness of the factors affecting the earthquake emergency and rescue in different regions were investigated and analysed. The understanding of the importance of the highest ranked factors was nearly similar, and the ranked order of the most important factors was highly consistent. However, obvious differences were observed in the understanding of the importance of certain factors. The understanding of the "basic environmental background", which is a first-level index, and 10 s-level index factors (e.g., industrial hazards control level, topographic relief, lithology, depositional conditions and climatic conditions) were significantly different.