Progress in research on vulnerability of natural disasters

In recent years,disaster prevention and reduction is emphasized more and more in international society.Vulnerability becomes a theme in disaster research and is gradually integrated in the sustainable development strategy.After reviewing the progress of vulnerability research at home and abroad,this paper briefly describes the process of vulnerability origin and development,includes the conceptions and frameworks of the glossary and summarizes risk-hazard model,pressure-and-release model,political-economy model,integrated model and resilience model on vulnerability assessment in several fields.There are three main methods in the vulnerability assessment about natural disasters.That is historical disaster data based method,indicator system based method and investigation-based disaster loss rate curve method.In the future,interdisciplinary cooperation,multi-scale objects integration and the compositive use of several methods are the trendency in vulnerability study.We aim at finding the origin of vulnerability in the human society and providing effective basis for insurance and decision-making of governments.