Abstract
Under the policy support of flood control and risk avoidance resettlement in Lizhuang township of Xinxiang City, 18 villages originally located in the Yellow River flood dike were relocated to the new area outside the dike. In this context, it is worth to restore and improve the ecological resilience of the original village site, and to study how to further enhance the community resilience in the resettlement new town. Based on literature review and field surveys, we aggregate a lot of data which includes historical statistics, questionnaires, site survey, satellite imagery, etc. We further used scenario prediction and GIS analysis methods to carry out the research. The questionnaire results of Lizhuang new town found three main results. First, the diversity and flexibility of economic categories of the new town have not been improved after relocation. 85% of the resettlement residents are still agricultural workers. Nearly 40% of the resettlement family income comes from agricultural farming, and 50% comes from migrant working, reflecting the low employment rate of the local secondary and tertiary industries. Second, with the residents’ needs for a better life ever-growing, the quality and quantity of the production and living service facilities need to be improved. For example, residents generally have high expectations for public service facilities such as cultural facilities, sports facilities, pension facilities, and production service facilities such as grain drying platforms and agricultural tools storage places. Third, the local historical and cultural significance has not been widely recognized and fully exploited. The residents' sense of community identity needs to be improved. For example, the location of the Yellow River diversion at Tongwaxiang in 1855 have not been widely recognized by local residents, which has typical representation in the history, geography and culture of the Yellow River, reflecting the weak cultural cohesion of the new town. Although it is necessary to improve the ecological resilience of the former Lizhuang site in Yellow River floodplain area as soon as possible, the questionnaire results above shows that the improvement of community resilience of Lizhuang new town should also be taken seriously. Therefore, we proposed four main strategies focus on resilience improvement which is applicable to the villages in Yellow River floodplain area: moderately restore the ecological function of the old site waterfront, open up the industrial cooperation path within and outside the floodplain area, flexibly arrange and increase the production and living service facilities, give full play to the cultural advantages to promote community identity.
