Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 3, 81–122, 2015 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/3/81/2015/ doi:10.5194/nhessd-3-81-2015 © Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in NHESS if available. Measuring county resilience after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake X. Li1,2, N. Lam2, Y. Qiang2, K. Li2, L. Yin3, S. Liu1, and W. Zheng1,2 1School of Automation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 610054, China 2Department of Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA 3Geographical & Sustainability Sciences Department, the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA Received: 15 November 2014 – Accepted: 12 December 2014 – Published: 5 January 2015 Correspondence to: W. Zheng (
[email protected]) Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 81 Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Abstract The catastrophic earthquake in 2008 has caused serious damage to Wenchuan County and the surrounding area in China. In recent years, great attention has been paid to the resilience of the affected area. This study applied a new framework, the Resilience 5 Inference Measurement (RIM) model, to quantify and validate the community resilience of 105 counties in the affected area. The RIM model uses cluster analysis to classify counties into four resilience levels according to the exposure, damage, and recovery conditions, and then applies discriminant analysis to quantify the influence of socioeco- nomic characteristics on the county resilience.