scholarly journals Leveraging Hazard, Exposure, and Social Vulnerability Data to Assess Flood Risk to Indigenous Communities in Canada

Author(s):  
Liton Chakraborty ◽  
Jason Thistlethwaite ◽  
Andrea Minano ◽  
Daniel Henstra ◽  
Daniel Scott

AbstractThis study integrates novel data on 100-year flood hazard extents, exposure of residential properties, and place-based social vulnerability to comprehensively assess and compare flood risk between Indigenous communities living on 985 reserve lands and other Canadian communities across 3701 census subdivisions. National-scale exposure of residential properties to fluvial, pluvial, and coastal flooding was estimated at the 100-year return period. A social vulnerability index (SVI) was developed and included 49 variables from the national census that represent demographic, social, economic, cultural, and infrastructure/community indicators of vulnerability. Geographic information system-based bivariate choropleth mapping of the composite SVI scores and of flood exposure of residential properties and population was completed to assess the spatial variation of flood risk. We found that about 81% of the 985 Indigenous land reserves had some flood exposure that impacted either population or residential properties. Our analysis indicates that residential property-level flood exposure is similar between non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities, but socioeconomic vulnerability is higher on reserve lands, which confirms that the overall risk of Indigenous communities is higher. Findings suggest the need for more local verification of flood risk in Indigenous communities to address uncertainty in national scale analysis.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-68
Author(s):  
Dacosta Aboagye ◽  
Elvis Attakora-Amaniampong ◽  
Ebenezer Owusu-Sekyere

The relationship between flood hazards and social vulnerability is firmly on the intellectual agenda of geographers in Ghana. In an attempt to theorize and empirically examine this relationship, scholars have commonly followed a one-sided methodological strand. In this article, a triple-helix approach that relies on the application of social vulnerability index; mapping potential flood hazard zones; and examining degree of coincidence between flood hazards and social vulnerability, is used. Situating the analysis within Hazards-of-Place Model of Vulnerability, the study identifies spatial disparities in biophysical and social vulnerability within the City. It emerged that communities in the Ashiedu Keteke sub-metro were the most vulnerable based on the hazards-of-place model. Significantly, while flood risk awareness was very high among community members, the perception of flood risk management was poor. The study argues that understanding place-based vulnerability is crucial in mitigating the effect of hazards and building resilient communities.


Author(s):  
S. V. Shiva Prasad Sharma ◽  
P. S. Roy ◽  
V. Chakravarthi

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> In the present study, an attempt is made to understand the impact on Social Vulnerability of the Kopili basin due to various severities of flood hazard. The flood hazard is generated using multi-temporal historical satellite based analysis and integration of annual flood inundation layers. The census of India data of 2001 and 2011 is spatially joined with village database to study the impact at village level. Using 5 Census variables from both Census 2001 &amp;amp; 2011 as vulnerability indicators, the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) is derived and classified into various vulnerable zones namely Low, Moderate and High Vulnerable zones. The findings of the study show that the number of villages falling in Low and High Vulnerable zones had decreased during Census 2011 when compared to 2001 and a rise of 6% in villages falling in moderate vulnerable zones during 2011 is observed. The spatial database generated is useful to understand the impact of floods on the Social Vulnerability status of the basin and can be a useful input to further study the Physical, Economic and Environmental Vulnerabilities of the basin.</p>


Author(s):  
Yi Chen ◽  
Zhicong Ye ◽  
Hui Liu ◽  
Ruishan Chen ◽  
Zhenhuan Liu ◽  
...  

The identification of vulnerable people and places to flood is crucial for effective disaster risk management. Here, we combine flood hazard and social vulnerability index to capture the potential risk of flood. In this paper, Nanjing was taken as the case study to explore the spatial pattern of social vulnerability towards flood at the community scale by developing an index system. Based on the flood risk results of ArcSWAT, the risk of flood disaster in Nanjing was evaluated. The results show the following. (1) Social vulnerability exhibits a central–peripheral pattern in general, which means that the social vulnerability degree is high in the central city and decreases gradually to the suburbs. (2) The susceptibility to flood disaster has a similar circle-layer pattern that is the highest in the urban centre, lower in the exurban areas, and the lowest in the suburb areas. (3) By using the GIS-based zoning approach, communities are classified into four types by comprehensively considering their flood susceptibility and social vulnerability. The spatial pattern is explained, and policy recommendation for reducing flood risk is provided for each type of community. The research has important reference significance for identifying the spatial pattern of social vulnerability to flood and then formulating targeted adaptation countermeasures.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Tascón-González ◽  
Montserrat Ferrer-Julià ◽  
Maurici Ruiz ◽  
Eduardo García-Meléndez

This paper proposes a methodology for the analysis of social vulnerability to floods based on the integration and weighting of a range of exposure and resistance (coping capacity) indicators. It focuses on the selection and characteristics of each proposed indicator and the integration procedure based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) on a large scale. The majority of data used for the calculation of the indicators comes from open public data sources, which allows the replicability of the method in any area where the same data are available. To demonstrate the feasibility of the method, a study case is presented. The flood social vulnerability assessment focuses on the municipality of Ponferrada (Spain), a medium-sized town that has high exposure to floods due to potential breakage of the dam located upstream. A detailed mapping of the social vulnerability index is generated at the urban parcel scale, which shows an affected population of 34,941 inhabitants. The capability of working with such detailed units of analysis for an entire medium-sized town provides a valuable tool to support flood risk planning and management.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Roder ◽  
G. Sofia ◽  
Z. Wu ◽  
P. Tarolli

Abstract Practices for reducing the impacts of floods are becoming more and more advanced, centered on communities and reaching out to vulnerable populations. Vulnerable individuals are characterized by social and economic attributes and by societal dynamics rooted in each community. These indicators can magnify the negative impacts of disasters together with the capacity of each individual to cope with these events. The Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) provides an empirical basis to compare social differences in various spatial scenarios and for specific environmental hazards. This research shows the application of the SoVI to the floodplain of northern Italy, based on the use of 15 census variables. The chosen study area is of particular interest for the high occurrence of flood events coupled with a high level of human activity, landscape transformations, and an elevated concentration of assets and people. The analysis identified a positive spatial autocorrelation across the floodplain that translates into the spatial detection of vulnerable groups, those that are likely to suffer the most from floods. In a second stage, the output of the index was superimposed on the flood hazard map of the study area to analyze the resulting risk. The Piemonte and Veneto regions contain the main areas prone to flood “social” risk, highlighting the need for a cohesive management approach at all levels to recognize local capacities and increase communication, awareness, and preparedness to mitigate the undesirable effects of such events.


Author(s):  
David S. Rickless ◽  
Grete E. Wilt ◽  
J. Danielle Sharpe ◽  
Noelle Molinari ◽  
William Stephens ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives: When Hurricane Harvey struck the coastline of Texas in 2017, it caused 88 fatalities and over US $125 billion in damage, along with increased emergency department visits in Houston and in cities receiving hurricane evacuees, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex (DFW). This study explored demographic indicators of vulnerability for patients from the Hurricane Harvey impact area who sought medical care in Houston and in DFW. The objectives were to characterize the vulnerability of affected populations presenting locally, as well as those presenting away from home, and to determine whether more vulnerable communities were more likely to seek medical care locally or elsewhere. Methods: We used syndromic surveillance data alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Social Vulnerability Index to calculate the percentage of patients seeking care locally by zip code tabulation area. We used this variable to fit a spatial lag regression model, controlling for population density and flood extent. Results: Communities with more patients presenting for medical care locally were significantly clustered and tended to have greater socioeconomic vulnerability, lower household composition vulnerability, and more extensive flooding. Conclusions: These findings suggest that populations remaining in place during a natural disaster event may have needs related to income, education, and employment, while evacuees may have more needs related to age, disability, and single-parent household status.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7274
Author(s):  
Joshua T. Fergen ◽  
Ryan D. Bergstrom

Social vulnerability refers to how social positions affect the ability to access resources during a disaster or disturbance, but there is limited empirical examination of its spatial patterns in the Great Lakes Basin (GLB) region of North America. In this study, we map four themes of social vulnerability for the GLB by using the Center for Disease Control’s Social Vulnerability Index (CDC SVI) for every county in the basin and compare mean scores for each sub-basin to assess inter-basin differences. Additionally, we map LISA results to identify clusters of high and low social vulnerability along with the outliers across the region. Results show the spatial patterns depend on the social vulnerability theme selected, with some overlapping clusters of high vulnerability existing in Northern and Central Michigan, and clusters of low vulnerability in Eastern Wisconsin along with outliers across the basins. Differences in these patterns also indicate the existence of an urban–rural dimension to the variance in social vulnerabilities measured in this study. Understanding regional patterns of social vulnerability help identify the most vulnerable people, and this paper presents a framework for policymakers and researchers to address the unique social vulnerabilities across heterogeneous regions.


Author(s):  
Emily J. Haas ◽  
Alexa Furek ◽  
Megan Casey ◽  
Katherine N. Yoon ◽  
Susan M. Moore

During emergencies, areas with higher social vulnerability experience an increased risk for negative health outcomes. However, research has not extrapolated this concept to understand how the workers who respond to these areas may be affected. Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) merged approximately 160,000 emergency response calls received from three fire departments during the COVID-19 pandemic with the CDC’s publicly available Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to examine the utility of SVI as a leading indicator of occupational health and safety risks. Multiple regressions, binomial logit models, and relative weights analyses were used to answer the research questions. Researchers found that higher social vulnerability on household composition, minority/language, and housing/transportation increase the risk of first responders’ exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Higher socioeconomic, household, and minority vulnerability were significantly associated with response calls that required emergency treatment and transport in comparison to fire-related or other calls that are also managed by fire departments. These results have implications for more strategic emergency response planning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as improving Total Worker Health® and future of work initiatives at the worker and workplace levels within the fire service industry.


2021 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Flávia Silvestre Outtes Wanderley ◽  
Ulisses Montarroyos ◽  
Cristine Bonfim ◽  
Carolina Cunha-Correia

Abstract Background To assess the effectiveness of mass treatment of Schistosoma mansoni infection in socially vulnerable endemic areas in northeastern Brazil. Method An ecological study was conducted, in which 118 localities in 30 municipalities in the state of Pernambuco were screened before 2011 and in 2014 (after mass treatment). Information on the endemic baseline index, mass treatment coverage, socio-environmental conditions and social vulnerability index were used in the multiple correspondence analysis. One hundred fourteen thousand nine hundred eighty-seven people in 118 locations were examined. Results The first two dimensions of the multiple correspondence analysis represented 55.3% of the variability between locations. The human capital component of the social vulnerability index showed an association with the baseline endemicity index. There was a significant reduction in positivity for schistosomes. For two rounds, for every extra 1% of initial endemicity index, the fixed effect of 13.62% increased by 0.0003%, achieving at most 15.94%. Conclusions The mass treatment intervention helped to reduce transmission of schistosomiasis in areas of high endemicity. Thus, it can be recommended that application of mass treatment should be accompanied by other control actions, such as basic sanitation, monitoring of intermediate vectors and case surveillance.


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