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The past literatures regarding hazard risk cases and theories generally lack of risk-oriented spatial planning and dialogue, which induce so called “weakness policy” phenomena. The research contents and objectives of this study are to construct an all-hazards river basin governance index system under the impact of COVID-19 pandemic as the mean of research methodology, and applying AHP and GIS overlays as the analysis tools, to assess the disaster social-economic vulnerability and mitigation response on the case study site of Da-an river basin townships in central Taiwan. This study has found: 1) the noise and environmental pollutions caused by religion activities has decreased owing to the pandemic impact; 2) the Central Government’s "Stimulus Voucher" policy and tourists’ “retaliatory consumption” are benefiting local tourism industry under the pandemic.

According to the IPCC report, Taiwan is threatened by global warming and high frequency and influence of extreme weather, which will result in great impacts to its agriculture industry and the future of food security. Unfortunately, along with the rapid economic development and urbanization in Taiwan since the 1960’s, agricultural land use has become less competitive to industrial, commercial, and residential types of land uses under land use competition. To effectively enhance the resilience and conserve the agricultural lands which under the threats of climate change and the competitions of other types of land use, Taiwan’s Spatial Planning Act (promulgated on 2016/1/6) enlists Agricultural Development Zones, one of four major functional zones in National Spatial Plan, into demarcated functional zone and applying land use control. The zoning plan is expected to be completed by every city and county before the year of 2025, and one of the major issues is to consider the land use function changes of different locations. By comparing the 2007 and 2016 land utilization maps investigated by National Land Surveying and Mapping Center, this study identifies the 10-year changes of agricultural lands of northern Yilan county. To further investigate the spatial distribution of agricultural land changes, spatial analysis techniques such as multi-distance spatial cluster analysis (Ripley’s K Function) and Kernel density are employed to analyze the spatial clustering of changes. The spatial analysis results overlays with hazard risk maps, such as flooding, landslide, soil liquefaction, to support the decision making of future agricultural land planning.

Agriculture land has been treated as the urban reserved land which has potential value for transformation. Especially for the land development strategy by “Developmental Government”, agriculture land’s value is twisted and encouraging trading activity, that result in lower production and short in food supply. The threats from extreme weather and environmental change has increased the potential hazards of landuse and challenges toward town planning. This study uses environmental diagnosis and field survey with in-depth interviews, along with the result from FLO-2D flood model and GIS overlay of hazard risk maps, to proceed with a case of “property-led development” in (Taiwan, Xinzhu) Zhubei city. The findings indicate that run-off volume of some area has changed and the flooding depth / area has increased. By interpreting the empirical results, it has exposed the environmental hazard issues and land commodification by the failure of urban planning policy in Zhubei city.

Taiwan belongs to the edges of sub-tropical and tropical climate zones, and has been indicated as a high risk edge area by international climate change researches. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Taiwan is threatened by global warming, changes of rainfall pattern, sea level rising and high frequency and influence of extreme weather, which will result in great impacts to agriculture industry and the future of food security. Unfortunately, along with the rapid economic development and urbanization in Taiwan since the 1960’s, agricultural land use has become less competitive to industrial, commercial, and residential types of land uses under land use competition. Therefore, to effectively enhance the resilience and conserve the agricultural lands which under the threats of climate change and the competitions of other types of land use, Taiwan’s Spatial Planning Act (promulgated on 2016/1/6) enlists Agricultural Development Zones, one of four major functional zones in National Spatial Plan, into demarcated functional zone and applying land use control. The zoning plan is expected to be completed by every city and county before the year of 2022, and one of the major issues is to consider the land use function changes of different locations. By comparing the 2007 and 2016 land utilization maps investigated by National Land Surveying and Mapping Center (Taiwan), this study is able to identify the 10-year changes of agricultural lands of northern Yilan county. To further investigate the spatial distribution of agricultural land changes, spatial analysis techniques such as multi-distance spatial cluster analysis (Ripley’s K Function) and point pattern analysis (Kernel density) are employed to analyze the spatial clustering of changes. The spatial analysis results overlays with climate change related and hazard risk maps, such as flooding, landslide, soil liquefaction, to support the decision making of future agricultural land planning and agriculture development zoning plan.Keywords: agricultural land, land use changes, climate change, spatial analysis

The degree of social vulnerability may vary according to the conditions and backgrounds of different locations, yet spatial clustering phenomena may exist when nearby spatial units exhibit similar characteristics. This study applied spatial autocorrelation statistics to analyze the spatial association of vulnerability among townships in Taiwan. The vulnerability was first assessed on the basis of a social vulnerability index that was constructed using Fuzzy Delphi and analytic hierarchy process methods. Subsequently, the corresponding indicator variables were applied to calculate standardized vulnerability assessment scores by using government data. According to the results of the vulnerability assessment in which T scores were normalized, the distribution of social vulnerabilities varied among the townships. The scores were further analyzed using spatial autocorrelation statistics for spatial clustering of vulnerability distribution. The Local G statistic identified 42 significant spatial association pockets, whereas the Global G statistic indicated no spatial phenomenon of clustering. This phenomenon was verified and explained by applying Moran's I statistics to examine the homogeneity and heterogeneity of spatial associations. Although both statistics were originally designed to identify the existence of spatial clustering, they serve diverse purposes, and the results can be compared to obtain additional insights into the distribution patterns of social vulnerability.

The case of Chun-You Street fire in downtown Nan-Gan Township revealed problems in Lien-Chiang County (also known as the Matsu Islands), such as conflicts in reconstructing post-disaster historical areas and the socioeconomic vulnerability to disasters. The changing urban form during previous decades generated politically oriented planning policies, tourism development policies, a unique population, and socioeconomic vulnerability. This study used a participatory observation methodology and in-depth interviews to investigate the following issues of the Chun-You Street fire: (1) the diversity of the county emergency management system during the response stage and the unique recovery process of a historical site that is based on the clan system, (2) the vulnerabilities caused by residents’ experiences in lacking daily supplies and the custom to store great amounts of materials, and (3) victims’ unclear property rights and land uses pertaining to past verbal agreements creating an obstacle to the recovery of a historical area.