A GIS-Based Social Vulnerability Assessment of Communities in Coastal Areas Exposed to Extreme Flood Events: A Case Study of the New Orleans Urban Area
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
According to statistics, the majority of Louisiana’s urban coastal area is low-income, out of which a significant percentage is susceptible to issues dealing with hazards and the relevant consequences. On the other hand, the increasing number of hazards along the Mexican Gulf Coast has become a severe concern for governors. In this study, social vulnerability to extreme floods for New Orleans urban area is evaluated through four phases. The indicators of social vulnerability are identified, and using a statistical analysis process the most important indicators are determined. Also, Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) is estimated and mapped, and the flood risk maps are generated. Finally, by merging the SVI map and the flood map, the social vulnerability exposure map is generated. The results revealed that four key factors that account for 78.60% of the variation in the overall dataset include age (31.3%), urbanization (21.5%), employment status (13.7%), and education level (12.1%). The output of this research can help stakeholders and decision-makers lessen impact of extreme flooding on the social life of vulnerable communities living in coastal areas.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Abbass, K., Qasim, M. Z., Song, H., Murshed, M., Mahmood, H., and Younis, I. 2022. “A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures.” Env. Sci. Pol. Res., 29(28), 42539–42559.
Ahsan, M. N., and Warner, J. 2014. “The socioeconomic vulnerability index: A pragmatic approach for assessing climate change led risks a case study in the Southwestern coastal Bangladesh.” Int. J. Dis. Risk Red., 8, 32e49.
Arya, S., and Kumar, A. 2023. “Evaluation of stormwater management approaches and challenges in urban flood control.” Urban Clim., 51, 101643.
Blackwood, L., and Cutter, S. L. 2023. “The application of the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for geo-targeting of post-disaster recovery resources.” Int. J. Dis. Risk Red., 92, 103722.
Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., and Wisner, B. 2014. At risk, Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters.
Bolin, B., and Kurtz, L. C. 2018. Race, class, ethnicity, and disaster vulnerability. Handbook of disaster research, 181–203.
Buckle, P., Mars, G., and Smale, S. 2010. New approaches to assessing vulnerability and resilience.
Cheng, Y., Elsayed, E. A., and Huang, Z. 2022. “Systems resilience assessments: a review, framework and metrics.” Int. J. Pro. Res., 60(2), 595–622.
Cutter, S., Boruff, B., and Shirley, W. 2003. “Social vulnerability to environmental hazards.” Soc. Sci. Qua., 84(2), 242e261.
Davids, P. R., Priest, S., and Hartmann, T. 2023. “On the horns of a dilemma: Experts as communicators for property‐level flood risk adaptation measures.” J. Flood Risk Manage., 16(2), e12881.
De Angeli, S., Malamud, B. D., Rossi, L., Taylor, F. E., Trasforini, E., and Rudari, R. 2022. “A multi-hazard framework for spatial-temporal impact analysis.” Int. J. Dis. Risk Red., 73, 102829.
FEMA. 2022. Retrieved from [https://www.fema.gov/flood-maps].
Frazier, T., Thompson, C., and Dezzani, R. 2014. “A framework for the development of the serv model: A spatially explicit resilience-vulnerability model.” App. Geo., 51, 158172.
Frigerio, I., Ventura, S., Strigaro, D., Mattavelli, M., De Amicis, M., Mugnano, S., and Boffi, M. 2016. “A GIS-based approach to identify the spatial variability of social vulnerability to seismic hazard in Italy.” App. Geo., 74, 12–22.
Ge, Y., Dou, W., Gu, Z., Qian, X., Wang, J., and Xu, W. 2013. “Assessment of social vulnerability to natural hazards in the Yangtze river delta, china.” Sto. Env. Res. Risk Ass., 27(8), 1899e1908.
Hadipour, V., Vafaie, F., and Kerle, N. 2020. “An indicator-based approach to assess social vulnerability of coastal areas to sea-level rise and flooding: A case study of Bandar Abbas city, Iran.” Oce. Coa. Manage., 188, 105077.
Jacobs, R., Smith, P. P. C., and Goddard, M. K. 2004. Measuring performance: An examination of composite performance indicators: A report for the department of health. Centre of Health Economics, University of York.
Kutty, A. A., Wakjira, T. G., Kucukvar, M., Abdella, G. M., and Onat, N. C. 2022. Urban resilience and livability performance of European smart cities: A novel machine learning approach. J. Cle. Pro., 378, 134203.
Lak, A., Hakimian, P., and Sharifi, A. 2021. “An evaluative model for assessing pandemic resilience at the neighborhood level: The case of Tehran.” Sus. Cit. Soc., 75, 103410.
Lin, L., Tang, C., Liang, Q., Wu, Z., Wang, X., and Zhao, S. 2023. “Rapid urban flood risk mapping for data-scarce environments using social sensing and region-stable deep neural network.” J. Hyd., 617, 128758.
Lindersson, S., Raffetti, E., Rusca, M., Brandimarte, L., Mård, J., and Di Baldassarre, G. 2023. “The wider the gap between rich and poor the higher the flood mortality.” Nat. Sus., 1–11.
McEntire, D. A. 2021. Disaster response and recovery: strategies and tactics for resilience. John Wiley & Sons.
Meerow, S., Newell, J. P., and Stults, M. 2016. “Defining urban resilience: A review.” Land. Urb. Plan., 147, 38–49.
Morrow, B. H. 1999. “Identifying and mapping community vulnerability.” Dis., 23(1), 1e18.
Nkwunonwo, U. C., Whitworth, M., and Baily, B. 2020. “A review of the current status of flood modelling for urban flood risk management in the developing countries.” Sci. Afr., 7, e00269.
Pozzi, T., and Hillis, V. 2023. “Social networks impact flood risk mitigation behavior: A case study of lidar adoption in the Pacific Northwest, US.” Cli. Risk Manage., 100527.
Rouhanizadeh, B. 2020. Analysis of barriers causing delay in post-hurricane recovery: Experts’ vs. public’s perspectives (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Arlington).
Safapour, E. 2020. A Decision Support System for Success of Post-Hurricane Reconstruction of Transportation Infrastructures (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Arlington).
Safapour, E., Kermanshachi, S., and Rouhanizadeh, B. 2022. “Key components of successful post–hurricane reconstruction of transportation infrastructures.” Bui. Env. Pro. Ass. Manage., 12(5), pp.775–791. https://doi.org/10.1108/BEPAM-05-2021-0071.
Safapour, E., Kermanshachi, S., and Rouhanizadeh, B. 2023. “Prediction of cost and schedule performance in post-hurricane reconstruction of transportation infrastructure.” PLoS One, 18(3), p.e0282231. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282231.
Siagian, T. H., Purhadi, P., Suhartono, S., and Ritonga, H. 2014. “Social vulnerability to natural hazards in indonesia: Driving factors and policy implications.” Nat. Haz., 70(2), 1603e1617.
Thomas, K., Hardy, R. D., Lazrus, H., Mendez, M., Orlove, B., Rivera‐Collazo, I., and Winthrop, R. 2019. “Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: A social science review.” Wiley Int. Rev.: Cli. Cha., 10(2), e565.
Tyler, J., Entress, R. M., Sun, P., Noonan, D., and Sadiq, A. A. 2023. “Is flood mitigation funding distributed equitably? Evidence from coastal states in the southeastern United States.” J. Flo. Risk Manage., e12886.
UNISDR. 2016. Unisdr terminology on disaster risk reduction. Geneva, Switzerland.
US Census Bureau. 2020. Retrieved from [https://data.census.gov/profile?q=United+States&g=010XX00US].
Vitale, C. 2023. “Understanding the shift toward a risk-based approach in flood risk management, a comparative case study of three Italian rivers.” Env. Sci. Pol., 146, 13–23.
Yarveysi, F., Alipour, A., Moftakhari, H., Jafarzadegan, K., and Moradkhani, H. 2023. “Block-level vulnerability assessment reveals disproportionate impacts of natural hazards across the conterminous United States.” Nat. Com., 14(1), 4222.
Zebardast, E. 2013. “Constructing a social vulnerability index to earthquake hazards using a hybrid factor analysis and analytic network process (fanp) model.” Nat. Haz., 65(3), 1331e1359.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Construction Research Congress 2024
Pages: 610 - 619
History
Published online: Mar 18, 2024
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.