You are here:
Modeling community assets and vulnerabilities
Citation:
Buck, K. Modeling community assets and vulnerabilities. UK Environment Agency and US EPA Science Exchange Webinar: Social Vulnerability Assessment and Mapping for Natural Hazards, Gulf Breeze, Florida, July 30, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
Understanding social dimensions of resilience and vulnerability to hazards such as flooding, wildfire, or extreme temperatures is a top priority for policy and decision makers throughout the world. Recent advances in GIS and geo-spatial analysis allow for more sophisticated identification and visualization of affected communities and areas of vulnerability. But significant challenges remain - both in terms of defining the complex social dimensions of vulnerability, resilience, and exposure to changing conditions, and identifying useful metrics for measuring them. This webinar will bring together social scientists and GIS specialists working on key aspects of these challenges. The aim is to facilitate cross-pollination of ideas on this important topic, to showcase different approaches and ways of working on the problem, and to foster continued idea sharing and possible direct collaboration between the two Agencies going forward.
Description:
This presentation will provide an overview of the methods and models used to estimate community assets and vulnerabilities. Existing indices of segregation and hazard risk are applied at the census tract level along with additional models to predict access to resources and information as well as the quality of built, natural, and social environment. Downscaling of survey data will also be discussed in the context of community disparities.