Assessment Social Impact of debris flow disaster by Social Vulnerability Index

Abstract

In Taiwan, disaster assessment has been an important topics for over 10 years. Assessment method was used as delineation method in the beginning. Then assessment is improved to cover financial loss in a disaster. However, recently, researchers realized that to assess a hazard is not just delineating, the possible loss from a hazard also depends on the social vulnerability (SV) of the local area. Therefore, this paper introduces an assessment method using the SV evaluation system. SV evaluation system is a data base system containing results of social impact and people awareness investigation in Taiwan. The new method can give a very different assessment in loss for debris flow hazard. This paper also uses a typical town in Kaoshiung, southwest Taiwan, as an example. The assessment with or without SV index results in an order of magnitude difference in financial estimation.