A Comprehensive Social Vulnerability Analysis at a National Scale

Abstract

Extreme hydro-climatic events, such as extreme rainfall, droughts, and heat waves, are increasing both in its intensity and frequency over India, leading to corresponding rise in economic losses and human casualties. Moreover, these extreme events continue to accelerate in the future climatic scenarios. Thus, proper understanding of the physical and socioeconomic drivers of these extreme events is essential and eventually improves the adaptation strategies. While the early warning systems of these extreme events have significantly improved, evidences on the eval- uation of dynamicity of social vulnerability throughout India are still significantly lacking.With regard to this, there is an urgent need to develop a set of comprehensive vulnerability maps for India, which may be utilized by the national disaster manage- ment and policy-making agencies, particularly to manage and recover from disaster events by spatially prioritizing the disaster management. Here, we provide a com- prehensive review on the current status of the national-scale vulnerability mapping along with the associated challenges, with the primary focus on the Indian scenario. We also emphasize on the recent advancement in the methodologies in mapping the nationwide social vulnerability. Readers must note that the present chapter serves as a guide for optimal data gathering efforts for future improvements and fine-tuning of social vulnerability maps to develop policy tools to reduce vulnerability, mitigate risks, and increase resilience to hazards.