Assessing Physical Vulnerability

Climate‐resilient water infrastructure: A call to action

“…75 An examination of the social vulnerability of a community encompasses a range of factors. 76,77 Common variables that are used to determine social vulnerability include income, poverty levels, age, gender, race and ethnicity, and housing status/tenure. In addition to a physical proximity to certain geographic features (e.g., coastal areas, rivers) that make certain communities vulnerable to climate change, sociogeographic characteristics, such as concentrated poverty and racial segregation, highlight the important and complicated interactions between members of a community and where they are living, which in many cases is a direct result of policy actions, some with long historical legacies (e.g., in the United States, zoning laws and ordinances, the Federal Aid Highway Act, and Housing Acts of the 1930s-1950s).…”

“…An examination of the social vulnerability of a community encompasses a range of factors 76,77 . Common variables that are used to determine social vulnerability include income, poverty levels, age, gender, race and ethnicity, and housing status/tenure.…”

The Overlap of Collaboration and Planning Networks: A Post-Harvey Study

“…Despite Hurricane Harvey’s unprecedented character, both academic and media sources have argued that its damage was exacerbated by poor planning and uncontrolled development (Boburg and Reinhard 2017; Brody, Highfield, and Kang 2011; Sebastian et al 2017). Rapid growth coupled with inadequate land use planning has contributed to Houston’s extreme flood vulnerability (Masterson et al 2014). Houston has no formal zoning code, and development has been permitted in the hundred-year floodplain.…”