Multilevel Approach to Measuring Societal Vulnerability due to Failure of Critical Land Transport Infrastructure

摘要

Societal vulnerability is a part of a disaster risk assessment and crucial information necessary for supplementing hazard and mitigation assessments. Identification and assessment of various vulnerabilities of societies, economies, institutional structures and environmental resource bases are the basic information necessary for improving risk reduction and preparedness to any kind of hazard. This paper outlines our approach to measuring societal vulnerability caused by impacts of extreme weather events on critical land transport infrastructure. We propose to use a multilevel approach where the measure of societal vulnerability is expressed through Vulnerability Index calculated on the basis of selected vulnerability indicators. The higher value of vulnerability index indicates the more vulnerable area. In conclusions the issues of further enhancement of vulnerability identification and measuring are discussed.