Assessment of social vulnerability to natural hazards in Nepal
This paper investigates district-wide social vulnerability to natural hazards in Nepal. Disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, epidemics, and droughts are common in Nepal. Every year thousands of people are killed and huge economic and environmental losses occur in Nepal due to vario...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2017-12-01
|
| Series: | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/2313/2017/nhess-17-2313-2017.pdf |
| Summary: | This paper investigates district-wide social vulnerability to
natural hazards in Nepal. Disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides,
epidemics, and droughts are common in Nepal. Every year thousands of people
are killed and huge economic and environmental losses occur in Nepal due to
various natural hazards. Although natural hazards are well recognized,
quantitative and qualitative social vulnerability mapping has not
existed until now in Nepal. This study aims to quantify the social
vulnerability on a local scale, considering all 75 districts using the available
census. To perform district-level vulnerability mapping, 13 variables were
selected and aggregated indexes were plotted in an ArcGIS environment. The sum
of results shows that only 4 districts in Nepal have a very low social
vulnerability index whereas 46 districts (61 %) are at moderate to high
social vulnerability levels. Vulnerability mapping highlights the immediate
need for decentralized frameworks to tackle natural hazards in district
level; additionally, the results of this study can contribute to preparedness,
planning and resource management, inter-district coordination, contingency
planning, and public awareness efforts. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1561-8633 1684-9981 |