Disasters as opportunities for enhancing sustainability values: Disaster experience and environmental awareness in rural China

This study evaluates whether people in general alter their perception of environmental pollution after disasters and the extent to which individual and contextual characteristics moderate this relationship. Results of multilevel regression analyses of data from rural China indicate that the experience of disasters heightens awareness of environmental pollution in local communities, net of various individual‐level and community‐level factors. Additionally, well‐maintained social relationships between villagers attenuate the impact of disasters and make people less aware of environmental pollution, and environmental degradation in the village enhances the impact and increases people's environmental awareness. Furthermore, the impact is not significantly different between residents in villages of different economic levels, and between residents of different levels of socioeconomic status. The results highlight the potential for promoting sustainability after experiencing disruptive shocks and stressors triggered by disasters, and demonstrate that it is crucial to understand environmental awareness as a dynamic process in changing local contexts.