Review article: A systematic review and future prospects of flood vulnerability indices

Abstract

Abstract. Despite the increasing body of research on flood vulnerability, a review of the methods used in the construction of vulnerability indices is still missing. Here, we address this gap by providing a state-of-art account on flood vulnerability indices, highlighting worldwide trends and future research directions. A total of 95 peer-reviewed articles published between 2002–2019 were systematically analyzed. An exponential rise in research effort is demonstrated, with 80 % of the articles being published since 2015. The majority of these studies (62.1 %) focused on the neighborhood followed by the city scale (14.7 %). Min–max normalization (30.5 %), equal weighting (24.2 %), and linear aggregation (80.0 %) were the most common methods. With regard to the indicators used, a focus was given to socioeconomic aspects (e.g., population density, illiteracy rate, and gender), whilst components associated with the citizen's coping and adaptive capacity were slightly covered. Gaps in current research include a lack of sensitivity and uncertainty analyses (present in only 9.5 % and 3.2 % of papers, respectively), inadequate or inexistent validation of the results (present in 13.7 % of the studies), lack of transparency regarding the rationale for weighting and indicator selection, and use of static approaches, disregarding temporal dynamics. We discuss the challenges associated with these findings for the assessment of flood vulnerability and provide a research agenda for attending to these gaps. Overall, we argue that future research should be more theoretically grounded while, at the same time, considering validation and the dynamic aspects of vulnerability.

Surveying the Surveyors to Address Risk Perception and Adaptive Behaviour Cross-study Comparability

“…Factors of social vulnerability such as language proficiency and whether the surveyed individual had a disability or was a minority were rarely applied. These results are consistent with literature reviews published in recent years (Moreira et al, 2021;Rufat et al, 2020;Lechowska, 2018;Renn et al, 2000). The three most often mentioned variables were ubiquitous -found in most databases -and matched general demographic characteristics.…”

Integrated flood vulnerability assessment of villages in the Waimanu River Catchment in the South Pacific: the case of Viti Levu, Fiji

“…The flood vulnerability index (FVI) which is an indicatorbased approach ) was employed in this study as a tool to assess the risk of flooding. Vulnerability plays a significant role in flood risk assessment as it comprises several economic, social, environmental, physical, and institutional features which affect the susceptibility of the exposed elements to the impact of hazards (UNDRR 2017; Moreira et al 2021a). However, the terminology and methods used in these assessments are still under debate (Kelman 2018;Aroca-Jiménez et al 2020).…”

“…Flood vulnerability index is one of the most effective methods of flood vulnerability assessment especially in holistic studies to enable a better representation of reality as it encompasses people's ability to cope, adapt, and respond to hazards in evaluating the potential impacts of flooding (Balica et al 2013;Nasiri et al 2016;de Brito et al 2018;Moreira et al 2021aMoreira et al , 2021b. It is a parametric approach which aims to build a picture of the vulnerability of an area consequently, assessing the flooding risk of that area by incorporating the four components of flood vulnerability including social, economic, physical, and environmental and…”

Development of a Local, Integrated Disaster Risk Assessment Framework for Malaysia

“…This study's selection of vulnerability indicators was based on expert opinions and responses, in addition to analysis using the PCA method. Combining PCA and expert knowledge to reduce the number of indicators by classifying the indicators into a similar factor group was an appropriate way to describe vulnerability [36]. Figure 4 illustrates the five principal steps used in selecting the most suitable vulnerability indicators.…”

“…was an appropriate way to describe vulnerability [36]. Figure 4 illustrates the five principal steps used in selecting the most suitable vulnerability indicators.…”