Assessment of Flood Disaster Resilience and Optimization Strategies in Plateau Mountainous Regions: A Questionnaire-Based Study in Dali and Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, China

Under climate change, flood hazards increasingly threaten livelihoods and settlements in plateau mountainous regions, making multiscale flood resilience assessment essential. Taking Dali and Lijiang City in western Yunnan Province, China, as a case study, this study develops a multidimensional flood resilience framework integrating basic conditions, economic and behavioral capacities, and social capital, and evaluates flood resilience at both household and village scales using questionnaire survey and spatial data.

At the household level, Kruskal–Wallis (H) and Mann–Whitney (U) tests reveal a pronounced gradient pattern (H > M > L) for most indicators, reflecting the cumulative effects of resilience factors. In addition, several key indicators exhibit an “H > M ≈ L” pattern, mainly related to social roles, pre-disaster behavioral capacity, and information access, which are critical in distinguishing high-resilience households. Medium-resilience households show relatively stable basic conditions but remain constrained by limited proactive and institutional capacities, while low-resilience households are characterized by multidimensional vulnerabilities such as labor shortages, health constraints, and weak information exchange.

At the village scale, villages are classified into three resilience levels using the Jenks natural breaks method based on Comprehensive Resilience Index (CRI). Satellite image indicates that village-level flood resilience is not simply determined by topographic relief, but by relative position within the regional hydrological system and spatial utilization patterns. High-resilience villages are typically located on river terraces or regional nodes, balancing proximity to water with effective risk avoidance, whereas low-resilience villages are often situated in low-lying convergence areas with constrained drainage and extensive built-up expansion. Medium-resilience villages mainly occupy transitional zones, where locational advantages have not been fully translated into disaster resilience.

Overall, flood resilience exhibits clear hierarchical differentiation and spatial embeddedness across scales, highlighting the critical roles of behavioral capacity, information accessibility, and settlement spatial structure. The findings provide insights for differentiated, scale-sensitive flood resilience strategies in plateau mountainous regions.