Modelling socio-economic vulnerability to floods: Comparison of methods developed for European and Asian case studies

Within a twinning framework supported by the FP6 research project BRAHMATWINN, an approach has been developed to effectively model and map vulnerability to floods in the Brahmaputra/Assam (India) and Salzach River Catchment, Austria. The intention of the research is to assess the socio-economic component of risk through a joint conceptual level vulnerability approach. The approach reflects the wider objective and conceptualizations of the IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change) framework. Within this framework vulnerability is defined as a function of adaptive capacity and sensitivity. As sensitivity and adaptive capacity are multi-dimensional constructs a wide range of possible input parameters are potentially of relevance and there is a need to be pragmatic about the datasets available and the subsequent selection of indicators. To enhance the range for parameter selection, the research methodology utilises census and household survey as well as land use/land cover data to derive and assess vulnerability. For both test site areas, appropriate indicators have been chosen from these sources and represented in sub-domains based upon literature and in-field interviews and substantial workshops with local experts. In both test sites linear combination and regionalisation algorithms have been applied to provide appropriate weighting to the chosen indicators resulting in vulnerability maps that reflect the perceptions of the stakeholders