Indicators

There is currently no consensus on a ‘standard’ set of indicators that represent social vulnerability to climate hazards (Isia et al., 2023; Degeun et al., 2022; Ebrahimi et al., 2022; Fitton et al., 2021). Known socio-economic and environmental indicators and the rationale for their selection are shown in the tables below. While not an exhaustive list, the indicators outlined below provide a broad range of potential information that may be available in different contexts for developing relevant indicators for heat and flood. While indicators generally have a positive relationship with social vulnerability (as the indicator value increases, there is an associated increase in vulnerability), however there are some indicators that have negative relationship with social vulnerability (as the indicator value increases, there is an associated decrease in vulnerability). In these cases, the Z-score, that is central to the methodology outlined here, is multiplied by -1 to ensure all indicators have the same relationship with social vulnerability.