Social Vulnerability Contours (SVCs) for Disaster Vulnerability and Resilience Mapping

Abstract

Mass flooding events are predominant hydrometeorological disasters in the modern world. This situation has worsened due to the accelerating climate change scenarios. This is because social vulnerability to flood disasters has become one of the greatest challenges in the world. Similarly, Sri Lanka as a middle-income country in the developing world, has been experiencing mass flooding events for decades. Many emerging studies have paid their upmost attention to model the flood disaster vulnerability. But a little has been explored about the understanding of the “Spatiality” or “Geographies” of social vulnerability and resilience status and distributional patterns. In light of the existing body of literature, this study aims to demonstrate a new mechanism for mapping the spatial patterns of social vulnerability and resilience for flooding called “Social Vulnerability Contours (SVCs)”. This study occupied with the multi-facet composite social vulnerability index (MFCSVI) in order to measure the values of each and every surveyed household for generating SVCs. The 213 flood affected households situated in eight Grama Niladari Divisions (GNDs) were considered for the empirical data collection. General normalization procedure was used to scale up all the variable values with different measures to a single scale. Study occupied with ArcGIS 10.4 for generating SVCs were based upon households’ MFCSVI values. The resultant SVCs revealed the significant spatial distribution patterns of social vulnerability and resilience through sampled GNDs. A good consistency of data distribution can be expected with increasing the sample size among GNDs.