Combining hazard, exposure and social vulnerability to provide lessons for flood risk management

Koks, Elco; Jongman, Brenden; Husby, Trond; Botzen, Wouter

doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2014.10.013

Cited by 500 publications

(323 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(71 reference statements)

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“…The demography intermediate indicator describes the dependent population and the origin of the population. Dependent population (children, elderly and disabled) has been also identified by other authors as an important descriptor of vulnerability (Cutter et al, 2003;Fekete, 2009), associated with the limited capacity of this population to evacuate (Koks et al, 2015) and recover (Rygel et al, 2006). The origin of the population (illegal settlements and percentage of population in strata 1 and 2) shows the proportion of population resulting mainly from forced migration due to both violence and poverty (Beltrán, 2008).…”

Section: Representativeness and Relative Importance Of Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional prioritisation of flood risk in mountainous areas

Rogelis

Werner

Obregón

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In this paper a method is proposed to identify mountainous watersheds with the highest flood risk at the regional level. Through this, the watersheds to be subjected to more detailed risk studies can be prioritised in order to establish appropriate flood risk management strategies. The prioritisation is carried out through an index composed of a qualitative indicator of vulnerability and a qualitative flash flood/debris flow susceptibility indicator. At the regional level, vulnerability was assessed on the basis of a principal component analysis carried out with variables recognised in literature to contribute to vulnerability, using watersheds as the unit of analysis. The area exposed was obtained from a simplified flood extent analysis at the regional level, which provided a mask where vulnerability variables were extracted. The vulnerability indicator obtained from the principal component analysis was combined with an existing susceptibility indicator, thus providing an index that allows the watersheds to be prioritised in support of flood risk management at regional level. Results show that the components of vulnerability can be expressed in terms of three constituent indicators: (i) socio-economic fragility, which is composed of demography and lack of well-being; (ii) lack of resilience and coping capacity, which is composed of lack of education, lack of preparedness and response capacity, lack of rescue capacity, cohesiveness of the community; and (iii) physical exposure, which is composed of exposed infrastructure and exposed population. A sensitivity analysis shows that the classification of vulnerability is robust for watersheds with low and high values of the vulnerability indicator, while some watersheds with intermediate values of the indicator are sensitive to shifting between medium and high vulnerability.

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Section: Representativeness and Relative Importance Of Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional prioritisation of flood risk in mountainous areas

Rogelis

Werner

Obregón

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In other words, the vulnerability of the exposed elements will determine whether the hazard will translate into a disaster (Birkmann et al, 2014). Nevertheless, while the understanding of flood hazard has greatly improved over the last decades, the knowledge of vulnerability remains one of the biggest hurdles in risk analysis and improving its assessment is seen as the "missing link" for enhancing our understanding of risk Koks et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since vulnerability is not directly measurable, several methods have been proposed to estimate it -including damage curves (Merz et al, 2010;PapathomaKöhle, 2016), fragility curves (Ozturk et al, 2015;Tsubaki et al, 2016), and vulnerability indicators (Cutter et al, 2003;Roy and Blaschke, 2013). Both damage and fragility curves are building type-specific and focus on the physical vulnerability of structures to a certain hazard, neglecting the social vulnerability and coping capacity of the inhabitants (Koks et al, 2015). Nevertheless, the ability of a society to anticipate, cope with, and recover from disasters is equally important to assess floods potential impacts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory flood vulnerability assessment: a multi-criteria approach

Brito

Evers

Almoradie

2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

132

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Abstract. This paper presents a participatory multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for flood vulnerability assessment while considering the relationships between vulnerability criteria. The applicability of the proposed framework is demonstrated in the municipalities of Lajeado and Estrela, Brazil. The model was co-constructed by 101 experts from governmental organizations, universities, research institutes, NGOs, and private companies. Participatory methods such as the Delphi survey, focus groups, and workshops were applied. A participatory problem structuration, in which the modellers work closely with end users, was used to establish the structure of the vulnerability index. The preferences of each participant regarding the criteria importance were spatially modelled through the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and analytical network process (ANP) multi-criteria methods. Experts were also involved at the end of the modelling exercise for validation. The final product is a set of individual and group flood vulnerability maps. Both AHP and ANP proved to be effective for flood vulnerability assessment; however, ANP is preferred as it considers the dependences among criteria. The participatory approach enabled experts to learn from each other and acknowledge different perspectives towards social learning. The findings highlight that to enhance the credibility and deployment of model results, multiple viewpoints should be integrated without forcing consensus.

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“…Even though all of these steps are important in the flood risk assessment process, flood hazard assessment usually receives most attention as flood hazard maps are used for estimating the danger to people due to flooding (Koks et al 2015). According to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) at the UK Environment Agency, flood hazard ''describes the flood conditions in which people are likely to be swept over or drown in a flood'', with these conditions being as a result of the combined effect of: (1) the depth of flow, (2) the velocity of flow, (3) the presence of debris in the flow, and (4) the spatial and temporal dynamics of these parameters (Ramsbottom et al 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flood hazard assessment for extreme flood events

2016

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Climate change is expected to result in an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. In turn, this will result in more frequent occurrences of extreme flood events, such as flash flooding and large-scale river flooding. This being the case, there is a need for more accurate flood risk assessment schemes, particularly in areas prone to extreme flooding. This study investigates what type of flood hazard assessment methods should be used for assessing the flood hazard to people caused by extreme flooding. Two flood hazard assessment criteria were tested, namely: a widely used, empirically derived method, and recently introduced, physically based and experimentally calibrated method. The two selected flood hazard assessment methods were: (1) validated against experimental data, and (2) used to assess flood hazard indices for two different extreme flood events, namely: the 2010 Kostanjevica na Krki extreme river flood and the 2007 Ž elezniki flash flood. The results obtained in this study suggest that in the areas prone to extreme flooding, the flood hazard indices should be based on using the formulae derived for a mechanics-based analysis, as these formulations consider all of the physical forces acting on a human body in floodwaters, take into account the rapid changes in the flow regime, which often occur for extreme flood events, and enable a rapid assessment of the degree of flood hazard risk in a short time period, a feature particularly important when assessing flood hazard indices for high Froude numbers flows.

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Combining hazard, exposure and social vulnerability to provide lessons for flood risk management

Cited by 500 publications

References 45 publications

Regional prioritisation of flood risk in mountainous areas

Regional prioritisation of flood risk in mountainous areas

Participatory flood vulnerability assessment: a multi-criteria approach

Flood hazard assessment for extreme flood events

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