In July, 2008, one month after the great “May 12^th” earthquake hit Wenchuan, Sichuan province, Chinese Academy of S&T for Development conducted a rapid needs assessment survey in Sichuan earthquake area, which was the first large scale example of a post-disaster rapid needs assessment in China. The project is funded by Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and cooperated with Fafo Institute of Applied International Studies, Norway. As many as 174 clusters (villages, residential committees or camps) and 5000 households in the affected area were randomly sampled, and trained interviewers were sent to conduct face-to-face questionnaire interviews. The questionnaire mainly focused on the living conditions of residents, including their losses in the disaster, housing and infrastructure, education, health, employment, social networks and social participation, attitude and evaluation, etc. The field work was conducted during 7th to 19th of July. Finally, 144 clusters and 4526 households were actually interviewed, and 3652 questionnaires were successfully collected. The response rate was 80.7%.

 

In July, 2009, one year after the “Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Rapid Needs Assessment”, CASTED and Fafo AIS conducted a follow up survey in the same area as the 2008 survey. The survey is funded by Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The aim of the survey is to monitor the reconstruction of earthquake disaster area. 5549 households are sampled this time, among which 4037 households successfully interviewed. The response rate is 72.8%. Beyond that, 1200 small-and-medium-sized enterprises in Deyang city are also sampled in order to study the economic impact of disaster on enterprises.