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Spatial heterogeneity of local flood vulnerability indicators within flood-prone areas in Taiwan

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Abstract

Global environmental change is bringing extreme precipitation, and the combination of natural and artificial impacts are resulting in serious floods on the west coast of Taiwan. Disparity in social, economic and infrastructure resources contributes to spatial variation in the vulnerability to flood disaster. Owing to the high frequency of torrential rain and serious land subsidence in the study area, this paper attempts to categorize vulnerability indicators under varied assumptions of spatial homogeneity and spatial heterogeneity. The results show that the spatial heterogeneity indeed affects the distribution of flood vulnerability indicators. The core value of this article is that it measures the improvement from using geographically weighted statistics rather than traditional statistics. For the flood vulnerability discussion, this paper demonstrates the importance of considering spatial heterogeneity when allocating resources against floods.

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Notes

  1. A township refers to an administrative division contained within a county. Yunlin County, which contains the study area, contains 20 townships.

  2. A village refers to a basic autonomous unit that is below the level of a township.

  3. Vulnerability = Exposure + Susceptibility − Resilience.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban Planning, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

    Hsueh-Sheng Chang & Tzu-Ling Chen

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  1. Hsueh-Sheng Chang
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  2. Tzu-Ling Chen
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Correspondence to Tzu-Ling Chen.

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Chang, HS., Chen, TL. Spatial heterogeneity of local flood vulnerability indicators within flood-prone areas in Taiwan. Environ Earth Sci 75, 1484 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-6294-x

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