Research on the Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Community Residents’ Night Evacuation Behavior Based on Structural Equation Model

Abstract

Nighttime natural disasters are common, and earthquakes are the most common of these disasters. This study explores the behavior of residents during night evacuations after an earthquake and the factors that influence such behavior. The aim of this study is to improve nighttime disaster relief in residential areas and provide new ideas for renovating and upgrading existing communities. Shanghai is one of the most population-dense cities in China, and it has a fragile built environment. As part of this study, questionnaires were randomly distributed to residents living in Shanghai, and SPSS and AMOS were used to establish a structural equation model to uncover the relationship between factors and the residents’ nighttime evacuation behavior. Some of the results and conclusions were the following: (a) residents had the highest tendency to choose autonomous evacuation and pro-social behavior during night evacuation than at any other time; (b) spatial perception was significantly negatively correlated with residents’ exclusive behavior; (c) herd behavior, autonomous evacuation, and prosocial behavior were significantly positively correlated with social networks. Finally, this study proposes policy and spatial coping strategies for different behaviors during evacuation to enhance the community’s natural disaster prevention capability.