Assessment and visualization of inherent vulnerability of urban population in India to natural disasters

ABSTRACT

Growth of Indian urban population is bound to have a substantial influence on the economic and environmental stability of India. India has the potential of adding double the current urban population, and with intensifying climate change-related disasters it can be home to millions of vulnerable habitants. This study captures the inherent characteristics of the urban population at the district level to compute the inherent vulnerability (IV) index. Our aim was to identify vulnerable regions of the urban population and prepare a composite ranking. Districts were grouped into urban population classes (UPC) for better comparability. We analysed data on 28 indicators under five major components namely, infrastructural, technological, social, financial and ecological. Our results show that 45% and 42% of districts fall under medium and high vulnerability category, respectively. Majority of the high vulnerable districts are clustered in the states already reported for lower Human Development Index (HDI) and high poverty levels in the past. In all the UPCs, the ecological component was observed to be the weak link. In addition, the technology component revealed a major gap. Findings of the study could assist policy makers in identifying the determining components of IV which can be focused for resource and manpower investment.

KEYWORDS:

• Inherent vulnerability
• urban population
• climate change
• disasters
• districts
• urban population classes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

M. M. Anees is currently a doctoral candidate at the School of Environmental Sciences in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research focuses on understanding the vulnerability of urban habitants to wide variety of socio-economic and climate driven factors by exploring the various demographic datasets and geo-spatial tools.

Roopam Shukla is presently a postdoctoral researcher at the Adaptation in Agricultural Systems working group at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Her research focusses on vulnerability, resilience and adaptation assessment, documentation and reporting in wide range of sectors with emphasis on smallholder farming systems.

Prof Milap Punia works in applications of spatial data analysis in regional development with emphasis on urban environment/socio-economic/ physical and demographic aspects. His other areas of interest includes earth observation for disaster management and LULC, climate change impacts while bridging the gap between social sciences and remote sensing researches.

Prof P. K. Joshi is a trained environmentalist with skills in Remote Sensing & GIS with a firm scientific research basis. He is specialized in GIS-based land use and natural resource management. He has made contributions in application of remote sensing and GIS in natural resource management, including forests/vegetation/LULC characterization and climate change.