Mapping social vulnerability to natural hazards in Italy: A suitable tool for risk mitigation strategies

Italy is one of the European countries that are most heavily exposed to a wide range of natural hazards, which might cause large economic losses. In this context, the assessment of social vulnerability has an important role for evaluating the capacity of a community to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. However there are currently no published studies analysing social vulnerability and its spatial distribution in Italy. Within this framework, this paper aims to apply a proven method for assessing social vulnerability at the national scale, while considering the contribution of the socioeconomic and demographic factors that affect the Italian population. The proposed methodology is based on the Hazard-of-Place Model approach, and uses free and open source software applications (FOSS). Specifically, we selected significant components through Principal Component Analysis and derived their spatial distribution. Using component scores, we derived a social vulnerability index, evaluated its geographic distribution, and performed a cluster analysis on its spatial variation. The analysis identified different spatial patterns across Italy, providing useful information for identifying the communities most likely to experience negative natural disaster impacts due to their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. This research represents an important contribution to improve the potentiality of risk mitigation strategies and in designing risk custom-made policies.     

承压含水层脆弱性影响因素分析及评价模型的构建——以山东省济宁市为例

由于浅层地下水的污染以及承压水的开采,导致受到污染的浅层地下水越流补给深层承压水,增大了承压含水层受到污染的风险,如何评价承压含水层受到污染的可能性是迫切需要解决的问题。论文根据承压含水层受污染的特点将承压含水层脆弱性分为固有脆弱性和扰动脆弱性两个方面,同时根据脆弱性大小具有相对性这一特性,将研究区内承压含水层各脆弱性评价指标归一化,根据信息熵反映实测数据的效用值计算评价指标权重,而后加权求和得到反映脆弱性的综合指数,从而避免了构建脆弱性分级和定额的主观性。以济宁市承压含水层脆弱性评价为例,对评价方法的可靠性进行了分析,通过与数值模拟结果进行对比验证了方法的可靠性。该方法具有概念清晰、操作简便等特点,对无法建立地下水流数值模型和溶质运移模型的地区开展承压含水层脆弱性评价有一定的应用前景。     

University ranking using research,educational and environmental indicators

This paper introduces a model, which is enabling a comparison between universities regarding research, educational and environmental performances; the mission of university fits the sustainability idea. The purpose of the paper is to improve the methodology and indicators of the existing ranking tables. The three dimensional index, which provides simplified information about the quality of universities, has been developed. It enables quick detection of the weaknesses, strengths and opportunities for universities. Weights of indicators were determined using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Results of the AHP have shown that the most important are research oriented indicators, followed by social and environmental ones.The proposed model has been tested on a sample of 35 top universities from the ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) and Times ranking tables and a new ranking table – the Three dimensional University Ranking (TUR) has been developed. In addition, correlations between indicators and ranking tables have been carried out. There is only a medium correlation between the ARWU and TUR. Regarding the indicators, a high correlation with Hirsch indices and Highly Cited Researchers exists, while there is an insignificant correlation between the low student to staff ratio and the graduation rate.     

张家口地区生态脆弱性及其影响因素

生态脆弱性是国际社会面对一系列生态问题时无法回避的重点议题,也是生态文明建设与绿色发展研究的热点之一。基于SRP模型,以张家口地区为研究区域,选取14项指标构建张家口地区生态脆弱性评价指标体系,把主成分分析法和地理探测器结合起来,进行张家口地区生态脆弱度以及主要影响因素研究。结果表明：2008—2016年间,张家口地区生态脆弱性明显下降,2008年、2012年和2016年轻度脆弱面积占比分别为27.24%、29.54%和35.57%,生态系统结构与功能正在向良性方向发展;研究区域内生态脆弱性空间分布差异主要与坡度、干旱指数、植被覆盖度和气温等因素的变化有关。基于评价结果,对张家口市生态治理与绿色发展提出建议。     

基于DRASTIC的地下水防污性能评价组合权重分配方法

DRASTIC方法是用于地下水防污性能评价的应用最为广泛的一种方法,但该方法在指标权重分配方面存在缺陷。本文在分析前人已有成果的基础上,提出了一种新的权重分配方法,认为合理的指标权重分配应兼具主观性和客观性特点,应用层次分析法确定主观权重能够充分体现出人为经验对各指标重要程度的判断,应用投影寻踪法确定客观权重可使等级划分评分值差异较大的指标获得更大的权重,用两种权重确定组合权重作为最后的权重分配。实例应用表明方法客观合理。     

两阶段评估体系筛选水源突发污染应急最优技术方案

为预判突发污染对水源的威胁程度,进而筛选适宜污染情景的最优应急处置技术,本研究构建了包含10个评价指标的水源突发污染威胁度判别指标体系,依据威胁度等级判定,确定与不同威胁度对应的应急处置技术评估指标体系的指标权重.同时,为合理体现群决策过程中专家差异对权重的影响,提出了基于循环修正的群组G1指标赋权法.以Spearman等级相关系数作为检验标准,应用平均值法、Board法、Copeland法3种组合评价方法对单一专家评价结果进行循环迭代修正,最终得到评价指标的一致性排序和各位专家的权重,使各项指标的权重赋值更为准确.将综合评估模型应用于2012年广西龙江镉污染事故中,成功筛选出“调水稀释—絮凝沉降—水厂强化混凝”的组合应急技术方案,同实际情况吻合,验证了评估模型的可行性.     

Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of Entitlements

The objective of this paper is to outline a conceptual model of vulnerability to climate change as the first step in appraising and understanding the social and economic processes which facilitate and constrain adaptation. Vulnerability as defined here pertains to individuals and social groups. It is the state of individuals, of groups, of communities defined in terms of their ability to cope with and adapt to any external stress placed on their livelihoods and well-being. This proposed approach puts the social and economic well-being of society at the centre of the analysis, thereby reversing the central focus of approaches to climate impact assessment based on impacts on and the adaptability of natural resources or ecosystems and which only subsequently address consequences for human well-being. The vulnerability or security of any group is determined by the availability of resources and, crucially, by the entitlement of individuals and groups to call on these resources. This perspective extends the concept of entitlements developed within neo-classical and institutional economics. Within this conceptual framework, vulnerability can be seen as a socially-constructed phenomenon influenced by institutional and economic dynamics. The study develops proxy indicators of vulnerability related to the structure of economic relations and the entitlements which govern them, and shows how these can be applied to a District in coastal lowland Vietnam. This paper outlines the lessons of such an approach to social vulnerability for the assessment of climate change at the global scale. We argue that the socio-economic and biophysical processes that determine vulnerability are manifest at the local, national, regional and global level but that the state of vulnerability itself is associated with a specific population. Aggregation from one level to another is therefore not appropriate and global-scale analysis is meaningful only in so far as it deals with the vulnerability of the global community itself.     

黄土高原地区生态脆弱性时空变化及其驱动因子分析

黄土高原是我国生态系统最脆弱的地区之一,科学评估其生态脆弱性是制定有效环境保护和管理措施的前提.然而,过去研究多关注某一小区域的生态脆弱性,不能反映该地区生态脆弱性的整体特征.基于"暴露-敏感性-适应力"模型框架,结合层次分析、空间主成分分析和地理探测器等方法评估了黄土高原地区2000~2015年生态脆弱性的时空变化特征及其驱动因子.结果表明,黄土高原地区生态脆弱性整体较高,并呈现出从东南到西北递增的趋势,且不同土地利用类型脆弱性差异大;2000~2015年生态脆弱性呈先增后降趋势,整体呈微弱降低趋势,其中约64%地区的脆弱性发生了变化;植被覆盖度和降水是控制生态脆弱性时空变化的主要因子,且所有指标因子间均存在明显的交互作用.说明气候变化和人类活动可能有助于降低黄土高原地区的生态脆弱性,但其作用有限.     

Assessment of inherent vulnerability of forests at landscape level: a case study from Western Ghats in India

Assessment of vulnerability is an important step in building long-term resilience in the forestry sector. The objective of this paper is to present a methodological approach to assess inherent vulnerability of forests at landscape level. The approach involves use of vulnerability indicators, the pairwise comparison method, and geographic information system (GIS) tools. We apply this approach to assess the inherent vulnerability of forests of the Western Ghats Karnataka (WGK) landscape, which is a part of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot in India. Four vulnerability indicators, namely biological richness, disturbance index, canopy cover, and slope, are selected. We find that forests in 30, 36, 19, and 15 % grid points in this region show low, medium, high, and very high inherent vulnerability, respectively. The forest showing high and very high inherent vulnerability are mostly dry deciduous forests and plantations located largely on the eastern side of the landscape. We also find that canopy cover is one of the key indicators that determine the inherent vulnerability of forests, and natural forests are inherently less vulnerable than man-made plantations. Spatial assessment of inherent vulnerability of forests at landscape level is particularly useful for developing strategies to build resilience to current stressors and climate change in future.     

土地利用变化中农户脆弱性研究——一个理论分析框架及基于中国中部五省的调研实证

农村土地流转是发生在我国农村的重要社会经济现象,既关系到土地供给的总体结构与变化,也关系到城市化和工业化的进程,更关系到农户的生存状况。论文在分析当前农户脆弱性研究进展的基础上提出了一种土地利用变化中农户脆弱性理论分析框架,该分析框架包括暴露性指数EI、敏感性指数SI和自适应能力指数AI。根据量化后的SI和AI,可以计算出农户的脆弱性指数VI。论文以中国中部经济区5个省份：河南、湖北、湖南、江西和安徽作为案例研究区域,在大规模农户调研的基础上,选取了定量测度敏感性指数SI和自适应能力指数AI的指标体系,运用几何平均数算法对其进行量化,并由此分别计算出各省份农地转入户和转出户的脆弱性指数VI。最后,论文将农户脆弱性指数VI与暴露性指数（流转面积强度EI_A和流转时间强度EI_T）的关系进行了分析。     

辽宁省沿海城市自然灾害脆弱性评价

文章以辽宁省沿海六市为研究对象,在广泛借鉴国内外灾害脆弱性评价的指标体系与评价模型的基础上,选取自然、经济、人口和环境设施等评价指标,构建沿海城市自然灾害脆弱性评价指标体系,并运用模糊综合评价法进行脆弱性评价。结果表明:葫芦岛市、锦州市、丹东市为高脆弱区;营口市为中脆弱区;盘锦市和大连市为低脆弱区。本文研究对沿海城市脆弱性防范有一定借鉴意义。     

Combining hazard,exposure and social vulnerability to provide lessons for flood risk management

Flood risk assessments provide inputs for the evaluation of flood risk management (FRM) strategies. Traditionally, such risk assessments provide estimates of loss of life and economic damage. However, the effect of policy measures aimed at reducing risk also depends on the capacity of households to adapt and respond to floods, which in turn largely depends on their social vulnerability. This study shows how a joint assessment of hazard, exposure and social vulnerability provides valuable information for the evaluation of FRM strategies. The adopted methodology uses data on hazard and exposure combined with a social vulnerability index. The relevance of this state-of-the-art approach taken is exemplified in a case-study of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The results show that not only a substantial share of the population can be defined as socially vulnerable, but also that the population is very heterogeneous, which is often ignored in traditional flood risk management studies. It is concluded that FRM measures, such as individual mitigation, evacuation or flood insurance coverage should not be applied homogenously across large areas, but instead should be tailored to local characteristics based on the socioeconomic characteristics of individual households and neighborhoods.     

上海市环境污染事故风险受体脆弱性评价研究

从环境风险受体敏感性和适应力两方面构建了脆弱性概念模型,在此基础上,考虑社会经济脆弱性和生态系统脆弱性,选取14个指标构建了上海市环境污染事故风险受体综合脆弱性评价指标体系.研究结果表明：上海市中心城区社会脆弱性较高,而崇明岛、南汇、奉贤的社会经济脆弱性最低;黄浦江上游水源保护区、崇明岛东滩湿地生态系统脆弱性较高,浦东...     

沿海省区洪灾脆弱性空间变化的初步探究

目前,脆弱性评估主要有建立指标体系、依据历史灾情和建立灾损曲线三种方法。选取国内评价洪灾脆弱性的典型指标构建指标体系,并采用主成分分析方法从原始数据中提取占总方差85．614％的3个主成分来分析影响洪灾脆弱性的主要因素,并通过聚类分析的方法来反映沿海省区洪灾脆弱性的空间变化。结果表明：人均产值、城镇建成区面积、居民消费水平、人口密度和地均产值等是影响沿海省区洪灾脆弱性的主要因素。最终沿海11个省区根据脆弱性差异聚成4类。     

A multi-criteria geographic information systems approach for the measurement of vulnerability to climate change

A flexible procedure for the development of a multi-criteria composite index to measure relative vulnerability under future climate change scenarios is presented. The composite index is developed using the Weighted Ordered Weighted Average (WOWA) aggregation technique which enables the selection of different levels of trade-off, which controls the degree to which indicators are able to average out others. We explore this approach in an illustrative case study of the United States (US), using future projections of widely available indicators quantifying flood vulnerability under two scenarios of climate change. The results are mapped for two future time intervals for each climate scenario, highlighting areas that may exhibit higher future vulnerability to flooding events. Based on a Monte Carlo robustness analysis, we find that the WOWA aggregation technique can provide a more flexible and potentially robust option for the construction of vulnerability indices than traditionally used approaches such as Weighted Linear Combinations (WLC). This information was used to develop a proof-of-concept vulnerability assessment to climate change impacts for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Lessons learned in this study informed the climate change screening analysis currently under way.     

基于灰关联度的地质灾害易损性区划研究

地质灾害易损性评价对于指导高易损地区人们的防灾救灾工作具有重要意义.本文以河南省嵩县地区地质灾害为例,基于范数灰关联度方法对其易损性主要影响因子进行权重计算,得出各乡镇易损性指数;结合该地区地质灾害易发性对其结果进行调整,得出该地区易损性区划结果;指出研究中出现的一些问题并进行了分析.     

南方丘陵区农业水资源脆弱性概念与评价

论文旨在探讨中国南方丘陵区农业水资源脆弱性的概念及内涵,构建脆弱性评价指标体系并进行定量评价实证研究。首先,在了解资源环境科学领域有关脆弱性研究相关成果的基础上,结合中国南方丘陵区农业水资源系统的特点,给出了农业水资源脆弱性的概念,并分析了其脆弱性内涵。然后,以衡阳盆地为例构建了一个包括自然脆弱性、人为脆弱性、承载脆弱性3个方面12个具体指标的评价指标体系。最后,运用模糊物元模型对衡阳盆地7个县(市)的农业水资源脆弱度进行评判,发现祁东县、衡阳县、衡南县、衡东县和耒阳市农业水资源脆弱度为强脆弱度等级,常宁市、衡山县为微脆弱等级。经验证,评价结果与评价区水资源脆弱性的实际表现比较吻合。     

基于神经网络综合建模的区域城市群发展脆弱性评价——以滇中城市群为例

城市脆弱性是评价城市发展韧性状况的有效测度。目前我国对于城市脆弱性的研究以运用统计学方法评价特殊城市为主,尚未形成对区域城市群具有普遍适用性的科学客观评价方法。以滇中城市群为例,从环境系统、经济系统、社会系统三个方面综合构建城市脆弱性评价体系,采用熵值法和BP神经网络综合建模方法,对2007—2016年10年间滇中城市群的城市脆弱性进行评价。结果表明：滇中城市群的城市脆弱性总体呈现下降趋势,但城市组团之间差异较大,呈现出发展中的不均衡性。评价结果对滇中城市群韧性发展规划具有重要指导意义,为区域城市群发展脆弱性研究提供一种科学评价方法。     

基于DRASTIC的丽水市地下水防污性能评价

地下水防污性能反映地下水系统遭受污染的可能性,可以为土地利用规划、地下水资源保护规划、地下水水质监测等提供科学依据。此论文结合丽水市的水文地质条件,对DRASTIC评价模型进行了改善,建立了符合丽水市的DRAMTIC评价模型。该模型由大气降雨入渗补给量、地下水埋深、包气带介质、水力传导系数、含水层厚度、地下水开采强度、地形坡度等7个因子组成,以乡镇单元等为界线划分不规则评价单元,评分体系由单因子区域分布规律确定,采用主成分—因子分析法分析各因子的权重体系;利用差分法对各因子加权叠加的综合指数进行等级划分,应用GIS技术得到丽水市地下水防污性能评价图。该模型的评价结果客观科学,能有效的为规划部门及地下水资源管理部门服务。