Using vulnerability indicators to develop resilience networks: a similarity approach

Abstract

This paper proposes a new approach to developing and utilizing vulnerability indicators, which is based on the concept of similarity. Methods for assessing the disaster vulnerability of communities through quantitative indices are established in research and practice. They are typically used to identify which cities or other spatial units are most susceptible to losses from storms, floods, and other hazards; however, their utility for taking action to reduce vulnerability has been found to be limited. In contrast, the method developed here quantifies vulnerability profiles for purposes of identifying places that are similarly vulnerable. Such an approach can facilitate sharing of knowledge, resources, and successful practices that are relevant to a particular community's circumstances. The approach is demonstrated in a preliminary application to coastal communities in British Columbia, Canada.

A New Approach to Identify Social Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Yangtze River Delta

“…Additionally, though dividing an SVI into key dimension indexes (e.g., exposure index, sensitivity index, and adaptability index) is a feasible remedial measure, applying too many variables for developing an SVI still reduced the interpretability of the composite index. Therefore, practitioners or managers will be confused as to how to target changes in a single indicator influencing the index, which lessens the tangible contribution made by the SVI method [8].…”

“…Fortunately, two innovative categories of alternative methods to the SVI have emerged in the literature of social vulnerability assessment: first, the measurement of social vulnerability with a similarity method [8]; and second, the identification of social vulnerable regions with a k-means clustering method [17]. A good example of the first type was a study of vulnerability made by Chang.…”

“…The value of w i (x k , y k ), i = 1, 2, 3, 4 means the weighing of the kth indicator, and is usually 1 or 0 depending on whether the comparison is valid for the kth indicator. Both s i (x k , y k ), i = 1, 2, 3, 4 and w i (x k , y k ), i = 1, 2, 3, 4 are defined for different data types and explained in detail in Chang [8]. Considering there was only one type, the continuous data, collected in this study, we defined s i (x k , y k ), i = 1, 2, 3, 4 and w i (x k , y k ), i = 1, 2, 3, 4 as follows:…”

“…This paper focused on China's social vulnerability to climate change and explored a modified approach based on the method of the Hazard Vulnerability Similarity Index (HVSI) [8]. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.…”

Review Article: A comparison of flood and earthquake vulnerability assessment indicators

“…Rufat et al (2015) argue that in recent years indices have become the main tool used to assess social vulnerability to flooding. Developing meaningful vulnerability indices is difficult, and complex interrelations between vulnerability and hazard or damage are often represented in simple indices (Cutter et al, 2003;Birkmann, 2007;Chang et al, 2015). On a positive note, empirical data on losses, required to relate vulnerability indices to those losses, have improved over the last 10 years.…”