Mission-Aransas Watershed Social Vulnerability Analysis : Using Principal Component Analysis as an Indexing Tool for Social Vulnerability

Climate change will impact the human communities of the Mission‐Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, resulting in adverse impacts to local economies, development, and infrastructure. In order to improve the resiliency of communities in the Mission‐Aransas Estuary watershed, adaptation strategies that address the major climate change threats must be developed. Vulnerability assessments are a key tool for developing these strategies, and they provide the necessary information for creating adaptation plans that improve resiliency. Social vulnerability to climate change is the degree to which a community is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, the adverse effects of climate change. It is a function of (1) the sensitivity of the community to climate change impacts, (2) its exposure to those changes, and (3) its adaptive capacity or resilience to the consequences. Specifically for this project, Texas Sea Grant and the Mission‐Aransas Reserve collaborated on the development of a social sensitivity index for the Census block groups located in the Mission‐Aransas Estuary watershed. The goal of the index is to provide communities with valuable information on their sensitivity and increase their ability to plan for and respond to upcoming environmental changes and potentially disastrous episodic events associated with climate change.NOAA Climate Program Office, Coastal and Ocean Climate Applications Program (NA12OAR4310104).Marine Scienc