Quantitative evaluation of emergency shelters in mountainous areas among multiple scenarios: Evidence from Biancheng, China

Accurate evaluation of urban emergency shelters is key to improving disaster response capacity and government emergency management ability, especially in mountainous areas where disasters are common. Most existing studies focus on evaluating material aspects, such as the capacity and accessibility of emergency shelters, ignoring the impact of different scenarios in the same area such as topographic, demographic, and population spatial–temporal distribution differences. Considering the multiple scenarios factors influencing emergency shelter practice, this study constructed a validity, efficiency, and security evaluation framework which was tested in Biancheng, Hunan, China. A combination of qualitative multiple scenario analysis and quantitative Network Analysis method were used to portray existing emergency shelters during emergency evacuations. The important conclusions are as follows: (1) there are significant differences in the evaluation of emergency shelters in the different scenarios. Scenario I (considering terrain) and Scenario II (considering demographics) decreased the evaluation results, while Scenario III (considering time–space) increased the evaluation results. (2) All three scenarios could cause variation in the validity indicators (A) and efficiency indicators (B), but A1 were unchanged in Scenario II and B2 remained constant in Scenario III, while none of the security indicators (C) were affected except in Scenario I. (3) While different emergency shelters performed differently in different scenarios, overall ID2 performed best and ID5 performed worst. Consideration of all scenarios was clearly necessary for us to scientifically evaluate the real use of emergency shelters, which can effectively guide emergency shelter planning and thus improve the abilities of urban disaster relief.