Identification

Title

Disaster vulnerability hotspots in the Portland metro-region: Converging indices for equitable resilience

Abstract

As climate-related extreme events intensify across the globe, governments, practitioners, and communities have focused on reducing vulnerability and building resilience. However, debates persist about the validity, differences, and similarities between social vulnerability and resilience indices. This study combines the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) (26 indicators) and the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) (52 indicators) to assess the Portland Metro region using ACS (2016â€“2020) and 2020 Census data. Through hotspot analysis, Pearsonâ€™s correlation, and linear regression, we identify key drivers as well as areas of convergence and divergence between the two indices. Results show a strong overlap between SoVI and BRIC, with distinct drivers across counties and census tracts. High SoVI/low BRIC hotspots were found in Clackamas and Multnomah counties. In Clackamas, vulnerability was due to limited hospital access, weak infrastructure and institutions, mobile homes, and inadequate community resources. In Multnomah, poverty, low educational attainment, and single-parent households were the primary drivers of vulnerability. While Clackamas had stronger environmental resilience, Multnomah showed higher resilience than Washington County due to better transportation, institutions, and community capital. Having a high proportion of migrant populations, institutionalized residents, and mobile homes reduced resilience in Washington County. These findings support the combined use of SoVI-BRIC indices for targeted resilience planning and equitable resource allocation for infrastructure development, environmental protection, social programs, and emergency preparedness across multiple scales.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7d2233w

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact