Social vulnerability influences the ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. The identification of vulnerable populations and factors that contribute to their vulnerability are crucial for effective disaster risk reduction. Nepal exhibits multihazard risk and has experienced socioeconomic and political upheaval in recent decades, further increasing susceptibility to hazards. However, we still know little regarding social vulnerability in Nepal. Here, we investigate social vulnerability in Nepal by adapting Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) methods to the Nepali context. Variables such as caste, and populations who cannot speak/understand Nepali were added to reflect the essence of the Nepali context. Using principal component analysis, 39 variables were reduced to seven factors that explained 63.02% of variance in the data. Factor scores were summarized to calculate final SoVI scores. The highest levels of social vulnerability are concentrated in the central and western Mountain, western Hill, and central and eastern Tarai regions of Nepal, while the least vulnerable areas are in the central and eastern Hill regions. These findings, supplemented with smaller-scale analyses, have the potential to assist village officers, policymakers, and emergency managers in the development of more effective and geographically targeted disaster management programs.
Natural hazard risk assessment generally focuses on a single hazard type, such as earthquakes, landslides, or floods. This emphasis tends to consider physical processes in isolation. However, most locations are simultaneously at risk to multiple, interacting hazards that generate cascading effects or synergies. Although scholars have proposed a multi-hazard risk framework based on probabilities, the quality and quantity of data required for such an approach are often unavailable in developing countries. Using geospatial and socioeconomic data, this study represents a first step in assessing multi-hazard risk in the city of Dharan, Nepal. Three hazards-landslides, floods, and earthquakes-were considered for an integrated hazard assessment using statistical methods and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). We employed a Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) to create a vulnerability map of the study area, which was then combined with a multi-hazard hazard map to produce a total risk map. Our results indicate that eastern Dharan along the Seuti River and southwestern Dharan on the left bank of the Sardu River are at high risk to multiple hazards. Central Dharan and the hills in the western portion of the city are categorized as low risk areas. Data limitations, such as availability and spatial resolution, did not allow for dynamic modeling; however, our results identified the spatial extent of low to high risk areas, which can inform future disaster planning. For example, the methodology and results of this study could assist in the development of disaster risk reduction programs and policies.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Women and men are impacted differently by natural disasters, leading to claims that there exist gendered disaster vulnerabilities and a "gendered terrain of disasters" (Enarson and Morrow 1998). What makes this contention even more academically and practically relevant are recent increases in the number of natural disasters and affectees (Guha-Sapir and others 2004; Paul 2011). The confluence of gender and disaster is particularly clear in Bangladesh, a country challenging twin specters of gender issues and an array of regularly occurring natural disasters. Bangladesh's unique geographic situation of extreme population densities overlaid on a low-lying deltaic and coastal landscape interacts with the nation's range of social and environmental transitions: issues of democracy, government corruption, poverty, rural-urban divides, and gender parity, coupled with problems related to multihazard risk, looming effects of climate change, and issues of environmental justice that predispose certain demographics to heightened levels of risk. Thus, the topic of gender and natural disasters presents a valuable junction for practical and academic exploration, representing a space where these transitions jointly manifest, coexist, and both create and reveal vulnerability.
THE VULNERABILITY CALCULUSVulnerability comprises a vast, continually expanding literature. This brief discussion is nonexhaustive, but meant to situate vulnerability as inherently complex and transdisciplinary. Here, vulnerability is characterized as multidimensional and defined as the absence of physical and ecological features, natural and human resources, and social, economic, political, and technological capacities that offer protection from the shocks of natural disaster (Comfort and others 1999;Cutter and Finch 2008).
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