An assessment of flood hazard vulnerability in the Dongting Lake Region of China.

After the catastrophic floods along the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) in 1998, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and the State Environmental Protection Administration of China jointly developed a methodology for assessing flood vulnerability that would be user-friendly for policy-makers. This report discusses this methodology, described herein with a trial application to the critical Dongting Lake Region, using an applied analytical hierarchy process to establish vulnerability weights, and geographical information systems to present the results in a readily comprehensible manner. This study is the first vulnerability assessment undertaken in China specifically directed at flood prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]