Mapping and assessing coastal resilience in the Caribbean region

Abstract

Assessing the vulnerability and resilience to coastal hazards is a critical worldwide issue, especially for hurricane-prone coastal regions such as the Caribbean. However, the development of a useful metric for vulnerability and resilience assessment has a lot of challenges. Cartography and GIS analysis can contribute effectively to the solution of the issue by integrating natural and human data layers for assessment, mapping, and visualization. This paper uses the new Resilience Inference Measurement (RIM) model to assess the resilience of 25 countries in the Caribbean region to hurricanes. The RIM indices of the countries were computed using three variables representing three dimensions: exposure, damage, and recovery, and eight variables representing social-environmental capacity. The RIM resilience indices were mapped and compared with the vulnerability indices computed in a previous study. The results show that Turks & Caicos Islands had the highest resilience, whereas Montserrat had the lowest. This paper contributes to the hazard literature by demonstrating new vulnerability and resilience assessment methodologies that include validation and enable inference. The paper also contributes to the cartography and GIS literature by demonstrating the need to integrate data and perspectives from multiple disciplines and regions, as well as the ability of geospatial technology, in producing useful decision-making tools for a very pressing societal problem.