 Social vulnerability to floods in two coastal megacities: New York City and MumbaiAlex de Sherbinin and Guillem Bardy Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 2015, vol. 13, issue 1, 131-165 Abstract: In this paper we assess differential exposure to flooding in two coastal megacities, New York and Mumbai, both of which suffered major flood-related disasters in the past decade. Specifically, we examine whether the most exposed populations are also the most socially vulnerable. First, we developed Social Vulnerability Indices (SoVIs) for each city with census data. We then overlaid the SoVI scores onto flood extent maps for Hurricane Sandy (New York, October 2012) and the Mumbai flash floods (July 2005), as well as for the evacuation zones for New York, to examine patterns of differential exposure. Our results suggest a degree of differential exposure in New York, especially in the highest flood risk areas, and provide fairly clear evidence for differential exposure in Mumbai. However, differences in the input resolution and confidence in the datasets for Mumbai make the results more uncertain. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications and the data needs for urban spatial vulnerability assessments. Date: 2015 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vid:yearbk:v:13:y:2015:i:1:p:131-165 Access Statistics for this article Vienna Yearbook of Population Research is currently edited by Tomas Sobotka and Maria Winkler-Dworak More articles in Vienna Yearbook of Population Research from Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna |
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