Assessing the Relationship between Social Vulnerability, Social Capital, and Housing Resilience

Abstract

Social vulnerability and social capital have been shown to influence how severely communities are impacted by natural hazards and how quickly they recover. Indices exist to quantify these factors using publicly available data; however, more empirical research is needed to validate these indices and support their use in pre-disaster planning and decision making. Using data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and data gathered through imagery analysis in Google Earth, this study evaluates the effectiveness of two indices of social vulnerability and social capital to predict housing impacts and rates of recovery in Florida and Puerto Rico following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. We found the social vulnerability index to be statistically significant in explaining the variation of housing impacts in both case studies, with varying results for the sub-indices of social vulnerability. Results for the social capital index were mixed between the case studies, and we found no statistically significant relationship between any of the indices and rates of housing recovery. Our results show that indices such as these can be useful, with an awareness of limitations, for researchers and emergency practitioners, and additional empirical analysis is needed to more fully support their efficacy for resilience assessment.

Climate Policy in Global and Local Aspects

“…reflective, resourceful, robust, redundant, flexible, integrated, inclusive [41]. The concept of a resilient city is based on making the city resilient to 'chronic stresses' or 'sudden shocks', which mainly concerns protection against the effects of extreme climatic phenomena, protection and development of biodiversity and ecosystems, resource and food security, as well as management efficiency and social stability [41,64].…”

Соціальний Капітал У Розвитку Системи Національної Економіки

“…Pavlevich K. and Pavlevich A. studied regional social capital according to five criteria on the example of 16 provinces of Poland [11]. Rowan S. and Kwiatkowski K. evaluated the effectiveness of using indexes of social vulnerability and social capital to predict the impact on the recovery rate in Florida and Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 [12]. Shpikulyak O., Mazur G. considered the place of social capital in the development of rural areas from an institutional standpoint [13].…”