Human exposure to floods continues to increase, driven by changes in hydrology and land use. Adverse impacts amplify for socially vulnerable populations, who disproportionately inhabit flood-prone areas. This study explores the geography of flood exposure and social vulnerability in the conterminous United States based on spatial analysis of fluvial and pluvial flood extent, land cover, and social vulnerability. Using bivariate Local Indicators of Spatial Association, we map hotspots where high flood exposure and high social vulnerability converge and identify dominant indicators of social vulnerability within these places. The hotspots, home to approximately 19 million people, occur predominantly in rural areas and across the US South. Mobile homes and racial minorities are most overrepresented in hotspots compared to elsewhere. The results identify priority locations where interventions can mitigate both physical and social aspects of flood vulnerability. The variables that most distinguish the clusters are used to develop an indicator set of social vulnerability to flood exposure. Understanding who is most exposed to floods and where, can be used to tailor mitigation strategies to target those most in need.

Social vulnerability models are becoming increasingly important for hazard mitigation and recovery planning, but it remains unclear how well they explain disaster outcomes. Most studies using indicators and indexes employ them to either describe vulnerability patterns or compare newly devised measures to existing ones. The focus of this article is construct validation, in which we investigate the empirical validity of a range of models of social vulnerability using outcomes from Hurricane Sandy. Using spatial regression, relative measures of assistance applicants, affected renters, housing damage, and property loss were regressed on four social vulnerability models and their constituent pillars while controlling for flood exposure. The indexes best explained housing assistance applicants, whereas they poorly explained property loss. At the pillar level, themes related to access and functional needs, age, transportation, and housing were the most explanatory. Overall, social vulnerability models with weighted and profile configurations demonstrated higher construct validity than the prevailing social vulnerability indexes. The findings highlight the need to expand the number and breadth of empirical validation studies to better understand relationships among social vulnerability models and disaster outcomes.

Deconstructing causal linkages between place attributes and disaster outcomes at coarse scales like zip codes and counties is difficult because heterogeneous socio-economic characteristics operating at finer scales are masked. However, capturing detailed disaster outcomes about individuals and households for large areas can be equally complicated. This dichotomy highlights the need for a more nuanced and empirically-driven approach to understanding financial disaster recovery support. This study assessed how social characteristics influenced federal disaster recovery support following the 2015 South Carolina floods. Ordinary linear and spatial regression models provided a mechanism for pinpointing statistically significant links between individual/compound vulnerabilities and resource distribution from four federal disaster response and recovery programmes. The study makes two unique contributions. First, exploration of how social characteristics influence recovery support is a critical, yet understudied path toward fair and equitable disaster recovery. Second, finer scale inquiry across a large impact area is rare in quantitative case studies of US disasters. While we found flood recovery assistance to be strongly associated with physical damage overall the relationship wase more tenuous in places with higher social vulnerability. Results indicate that future disaster recovery programs focusing on both physical damage and social vulnerable would lead to a more equitable disaster recoveries. Findings provide new understanding of equity at the intersection of social vulnerability, impacts, and disaster recovery and showcase both best-practices and areas for programme improvements for future disasters.

This paper traces the historic development of flood risk and the antecedent conditions that contributed to the catastrophic consequences in central South Carolina as the result of the 2015 flash flood. The study draws on archival and contextual research to underscore development paradoxes: the safe development paradox—federal policies aimed at making hazardous areas safer that have resulted in just the opposite—and the local government paradox—local governments permitting development of hazardous areas through lax land-use regulations and zoning while their residents bear the burden of hazards events. These paradoxes are used to illustrate the rapid development of an urban watershed and associated increase in flood risk. A chronology of development patterns from the 1930s with the expansion of the central core urbanized footprint of Columbia shows an increasing level of flood risk exposure as creeks were channelized, ornamental lakes developed, and high-end housing built, all with local government approval. In contrast, the uptake of National Flood Insurance policies remained below national averages for the level of risk in the region especially in the urbanized areas. Unabated hazard exposure and lack of mitigation set the stage for the significant losses incurred in the 2015 flood event and the uneven spatial variability in impacts. Unlike the impacts of Hurricane Katrina or the 2016 Louisiana flash floods, the burden of flood losses fell mostly on residents who could afford to bear the loss. With the exception of the discussion about buy-outs, this catastrophic flash flood event did not lead to a review of or change in land use, building, or zoning ordinances. Instead, the relatively quick residential recovery allowed the community to return to its predisaster state with seemingly few lessons learned.

Building disaster resilience is a stated goal of disaster risk reduction programs. Recent research emphasizes a need for a greater understanding of community disaster response and recovery capacity so that communities can absorb shocks and withstand severe conditions and progress through the recovery period more efficiently. Nepal, which is prone to a multitude of hazards and having recently experienced a large earthquake in 2015, provides a unique opportunity for exploring disaster resilience in the developing world context. To date, no study investigating community disaster resilience across the entire country of Nepal exists. This study quantifies disaster resilience at Nepal’s village level, primarily using census data. Guided by the Disaster Resilience of Place (DROP) model, 22 variables were selected as indicators of social, economic, community, infrastructure, and environmental resilience. Community resilience was assessed for 3971 village development communities (VDCs) and municipalities while using a principal component analysis. Additionally, a cluster analysis was performed to distinguish spatial patterns of resilience. Analyses reveal differential community disaster resilience across the country. Communities in the capital city Kathmandu and in the western and far western Hill are relatively resilient. While the entire Tarai region, which holds the greatest proportion of Nepal’s population, exhibits relatively low levels of resilience when compared to the rest of the county. The results from this analysis provide empirical evidence with the potential to help decision-makers in the allocation of scarce resources to increase resilience at the local level.