Disaster Resilience Assessment and Key Drivers of Resilience Evolution in Mountainous Cities Facing Geo-Disasters: A Case Study of Disaster-Prone Counties in Western Sichuan

With global population growth and accelerated technological innovation, human activities have expanded, leading to worsening ecological degradation and more frequent disasters, particularly in vulnerable and underdeveloped mountainous areas. Western Sichuan, predominantly consisting of mountainous cities, has unique geographical conditions that not only hinder socioeconomic development but also create an environment conducive to disaster occurrence. This study, therefore, investigates the disaster resilience of mountainous cities in western Sichuan. Using support vector machine (SVM), this study predicts geo-disaster risks. Shapley values from cooperative game theory are employed to optimize three evaluation methods, TOPSIS, Grey Relational Analysis (GRA), and Rank Sum Ratio (RSR), to calculate social resilience values. Finally, disaster resilience values are determined by integrating geo-disaster risk with socioeconomic resilience. Kernel density estimation and GeoDetector are then used to analyze the disaster resilience values. The findings reveal that (1) the disaster resilience of mountainous cities is generally improving, with a gradual decrease in the number of cities with low resilience, though the overall level remains low; (2) resilience disparities among cities are evident, showing an “east-high, west-low” distribution, primarily due to the eastern region’s proximity to developed cities and the socioeconomic support it has received; (3) the proliferation of information technology and the development of tourism are key drivers of resilience development, while human activities exacerbate geo-disaster risks; (4) the enhancement of disaster resilience is more dependent on the interaction of multiple driving factors than on any single factor. This study, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG3, SDG4, SDG8, SDG9, SDG11, and SDG15), offers recommendations for disaster resilience development and provides theoretical support for policy formulation in mountainous cities.