Vulnerability is an essential element for defining disaster impacts and its threat to people. How and in…

Question

Vulnerability is an essential element for defining disaster impacts and its threat to people. How and in what ways can vulnerability to disasters be characterized? Discuss different types of vulnerability with reference to disasters.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Vulnerability is characterised by exposure, sensitivity and the capacity to cope and adapt, and it takes physical, social, economic and environmental forms. The Pressure and Release model traces it from root causes through dynamic pressures to the unsafe conditions a hazard exploits.

**Introduction**

A hazard becomes a disaster only where it meets vulnerable people. The Pressure and Release model of Wisner and colleagues frames this as Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability.

**How Vulnerability Can Be Characterised**

SKETCH: flow | Pressure and Release Model
- Root causes
- Dynamic pressures
- Unsafe conditions
- Hazard meets people
- Disaster

1. **Exposure**: Vulnerability begins with the people and assets in harm's way, on a floodplain, in a seismic zone or along a cyclone coast.
2. **Sensitivity and capacity**: The IPCC treats vulnerability as the propensity to be harmed, shaped by sensitivity and a lack of capacity to cope and adapt; savings, insurance and literacy lower it.
3. **Scale and measurement**: It varies by household and region and changes over time; the DST's 2021 climate vulnerability assessment ranked Jharkhand, Mizoram and Odisha the most vulnerable states.

**Types of Vulnerability to Disasters**

1. **Physical**: Non-engineered masonry caused most deaths in Bhuj (2001), and Joshimath (2023) showed homes built on landslide debris.
2. **Social**: Oxfam (2005) found women far outnumbered men among the 2004 tsunami's dead in Cuddalore, and people with disabilities are often left out of evacuation plans.
3. **Economic**: Slum dwellers lost homes and wages in Mumbai's 2005 deluge, and uninsured farmers face ruin after one failed monsoon.
4. **Environmental**: Villages behind the Bhitarkanika mangroves suffered fewer deaths in the 1999 Odisha super cyclone than villages without that cover.

**Conclusion**

Vulnerability is produced by society and can be reduced by it through safer housing, insurance and healthy ecosystems. Characterising it by type and place lets India cut disaster losses before the hazard strikes, as the Sendai Framework urges.

Vulnerability is an essential element for defining disaster impacts and its threat to people. How and in what ways can vulnerability to disasters be characterized? Discuss different types of vulnerability with reference to disasters.

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