Abstract
Uttarakhand, India, is a dynamic region. It is frequently exposed to natural hazards and is experiencing rapid urbanization. However, the interaction of the increase in people, the built environment, and vulnerability to natural hazards is poorly understood. We model the relationship between urbanization and hazards for 3 cities (Almora, Nainital, and Champawat) and their surrounding subdistricts in the region using a social vulnerability framework. We apply the framework by using principal component analysis to identify socioeconomic vulnerability indicators and built-environment vulnerability indicators. The results show that higher access to assets reduces vulnerability and that larger households are less vulnerable. We also find that the presence of a bathroom and higher-quality building materials are associated with reduced vulnerability. Bathroom presence is more frequent in cities than in surrounding areas, and the quality of building materials was mixed within cities. Access to assets is higher in the cities than in surrounding areas, but households are smaller in cities. These indicators of vulnerability help to close the knowledge gap and identify who is vulnerable and where they live. This analysis continues to expand the conversation about vulnerability to disasters related to natural hazards in mountain regions.
Highlights
Mountains are unique landscapes that are frequently exposed to various natural hazards
The goal of this paper is to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of households vulnerable to disasters related to natural hazards in 3 cities and their surrounding subdistricts in Uttarakhand
Following methods established by Cutter et al (2003) and Borden et al (2007), we modeled socioeconomic vulnerability (SEV) and built-environment vulnerability (BEV)
Summary
Mountains are unique landscapes that are frequently exposed to various natural hazards. Steep slopes, and intense seasonal precipitation make mountain regions susceptible to frequent flash flooding events (Shrestha and Chhophel 2010; Elalem and Pal 2015). These intense rain events are often linked with landslide occurrence. The geophysical characteristics of a region, such as terrain, slope, and precipitation, are the first things considered when trying to understand where people may be exposed to natural hazards, because they give insight into where these hazards are likely to occur This does not give us the whole picture about who is most vulnerable to disasters related to natural hazards (Borden et al 2007; Poonam et al 2017)
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