Application of social vulnerability indicators to climate change for the southwest coastal areas of Taiwan

Wu, Chin-Cheng, Jhan, Hao-Tang ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3517-8522, Ting, Kuo-Huan, Tsai, Heng-Chieh, Lee, Meng-Tsung, Hsu, Tai-Wen and Liu, Wen-Hong 2016. Application of social vulnerability indicators to climate change for the southwest coastal areas of Taiwan. Sustainability 8 (12) , 1270. 10.3390/su8121270

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Abstract

The impact of climate change on the coastal zones of Taiwan not only affects the marine environment, ecology, and human communities whose economies rely heavily on marine activities, but also the sustainable development of national economics. The southwest coast is known as the area most vulnerable to climate change; therefore, this study aims to develop indicators to assess social vulnerability in this area of Taiwan using the three dimensions of susceptibility, resistance, and resilience. The modified Delphi method was used to develop nine criteria and 26 indexes in the evaluation, and the analytic hierarchy process method was employed to evaluate the weight of each indicator based on the perspectives of experts collected through questionnaire surveys. The results provide important information pertaining to the vulnerability of the most susceptive regions, the lowest-resistance areas, and the least resilient townships on the southwest coast. The most socially vulnerable areas are plotted based on the present analysis. Experts can consider the vulnerability map provided here when developing adaptation policies. It should be kept in mind that improving the capacities of resistance and resilience is more important than reducing susceptibility in Taiwan.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sustainable development; climate change; social vulnerability index; Delphi method; analytic hierarchy process
Publisher:	MDPI Publishing
ISSN:	2071-1050
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 April 2017
Date of Acceptance:	29 November 2016
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 08:09
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/99951

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