Social Vulnerability and Environmental Hazards

Abstract

Social vulnerability is the likelihood that people and the way they live will be harmed by a natural hazard because of the influence of economic, political, and social factors. It requires that there be a defined entity that is vulnerable (people and human systems), a hazard that can potentially cause harm to them, and an explanation of the causes of that vulnerability that is rooted in society. Social vulnerability is the terminology in relation to human systems used by many authors to indicate that they identify people as the focus of analysis (e.g., rather than infrastructure or built environment) in the context of political, economic, and social factors. Since the 1970s, understanding of disasters has moved away from widespread acceptance that they are “natural” toward the analysis that identifies socioeconomic and political phenomena as the main determinants, with social vulnerability as the prime explanatory concept. Vulnerability varies across social groups, including gender, class, caste, ethnicity, and age.