Identifying the social groups that lack coping capacity when facing a disruptive event, but also the mechanisms that can make people vulnerable, can help policymakers to design effective disaster risk reduction strategies and build resilience among the most vulnerable segments of a population. A case study in Halmstad, Sweden, focused on climate change, water-related hazards, and interdisciplinary methods to do so.
As climate changes, Sweden is expected to experience increased risks from various water-related hazards, which can cause cascading effects with disruptions across vital societal functions and critical infrastructures. Which social groups in Sweden will be affected by these disruptions is unclear, as are the economic, social and physical factors that will determine these groups’ coping capacities.
Insights gathered from the projects HydroHazards and UNCHAIN, both of which collaborated with the Municipality of Halmstad, provide the basis of this work. The authors propose using current municipal assessments as a starting point to better understand social vulnerability. Expanded to investigate who depends on critical infrastructure and vital societal functions, this work should lead to an exploration of socioeconomic impacts of weather-related disruptions.
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