Cloud evaluation of emergency management capability of the Government for urban flood disasters: evidence from China

Abstract

A relevant evaluation index system was established in this study for the objective measurement of emergency management capability for urban flood disasters based on the four stages of emergency response, namely, “prevention, early warning, response, and recovery.” The weight distribution of different evaluation indi- ces was calculated by using the CRITIC method, which generated an evaluation cloud and a result cloud based on the cloud model. A case study on the emergency management of Zhengzhou City in Henan Province of the “7.20 Flood Disaster” was conducted, and the evaluation results were displayed intuitively as the digital fea- tures of the cloud model and in the computational cloud diagrams. The evaluation results of the emergency management capability of Zhengzhou City for the “7.20 Flood Disaster” were obtained, and a new direction for emergency management capability im- provement was proposed based on a capability enhancement prio- rity matrix. Results showed that Zhengzhou City exhibited only the “simple level - system management mode” in coping with the “7.20 Flood Disaster.” Zhengzhou City can improve its emergen- cy management capability against flood disasters by improving the reliability of its monitoring and communication systems, the effectiveness of its publicity and education measures, and the ti- meliness of its provision of postdisaster information statistics and reports. The conclusions disclose a new direction for the scientific judgment of emergency management capability for flood disasters and the formulation of capability enhancement strategies.