Social Vulnerability Assessment for Large-scale Flood Hazard and its Sensitivity Analysis

Identification of social vulnerability is crucial for emergency preparedness, mitigation planning, and recovery from disasters. The paper puts forth a quantitative methodology for characterizing social vulnerability to large-scale flood hazard, as well as it discusses the uncertainty associated with model output. In this research, firstly the perspective for analyzing social vulnerability to large-scale flood hazard is presented by literature review. Then the assessment of social vulnerability to flood hazard is put forth, which employs spatial multi-criteria analysis approach. Finally sensitivity analysis induced by parameter uncertainty in the assessment model is analyzed, in which global sensitivity analysis based on Monte Carlo sampling is adopted to identify sensitive parameters contributing to model remarkably. Understanding the impacts of changes in parameter value is significant to enhance robustness in the method for measuring social vulnerability with respect to flood hazard.