Assessment of the Socioeconomic Vulnerability to Seismic Hazards in the National Capital Region of India Using Factor Analysis

The seismicity of the National Capital Region (NCR) of India increased significantly over the last decade. Communities in the NCR face significant exposure to damaging seismic events, and the seismic risk arises not only from the region’s proximity to the Himalayan mountains, but also from the socioeconomic vulnerabilities in its communities and the current capacities of different localities to respond to and recover from any unforeseen large seismic event. GIS-based spatial distribution of exposure to seismic hazards (SH) can help decision-makers and authorities identify locations with populations at high seismic risk, and to prepare risk-mitigation plans. Socioeconomic vulnerability (SeV) studies serve as a basis for quantifying qualitative measures. For this purpose, in the present study, the hazard of place (HoP) model is used to assess SeV to seismic hazards in the NCR. Social indicators like age, gender, literacy, family size, built environment, etc., comprising a total of 36 variables, are used to assess a socioeconomic vulnerability index (SeVI) based on factor and principal component (PCA) analyses. Based on PCA, 20 variables were retained and grouped into four factors: socioeconomic status, employment status, building typology, and family size. Ground-motion parameters, estimated from probabilistic seismic hazard assessment, are integrated with the socioeconomic vulnerability index to quantify exposure to seismic hazards. The spatial distributions in the produced socioeconomic-vulnerability index and seismic–hazard–exposure maps highlight the critical areas. The results reveal that areas of low literacy, high unemployment, and poor housing condition show moderate-to-high vulnerability. The south-eastern region of the study area is assessed as a high-risk zone by an integrated SeV–SH risk matrix. The results of this study emphasize the importance of the socioeconomic vulnerability component of disaster risk–reduction programs, from a holistic perspective, for the areas with high seismicity.