In the last decade, with the increment of the occurrence of extreme meteorological events in Colombia, the disaster management field has grown aided by political intervention and investment. However, the country currently lacks a comprehensive integrated place-based assessment of social vulnerability that covers the entire territory. In consequence, the present study employed the SoVI (R) method to understand the pre-existing social vulnerability throughout the territory as a first step in national disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation planning. The social vulnerability assessment presented in this study is based on the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI (R)) developed for the United States of America (USA). The Colombian index was constructed using data from the 2005 census provided by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) and the 2009 data of the Selecting Beneficiaries of Social Programs (SISBEN). The analysis included the municipalities with available information of their urban and rural areas (1118). The results show seven factors that explain 64% of the variance. The values range from +17.85 (High social vulnerability) to-4.85 (low social vulnerability). In general, the most vulnerable municipalities are located in the Pacific and Amazon regions, the southern areas of the Orinoco and the northern part of the Caribbean. The application of SoVI (R) for Colombia presented in this paper indicates a regionalization of vulnerability within the territory between areas of industrial and economic growth (urban), and areas of poor socio-economic development that may also be marked by the presence of political conflict and production of illegal crops (rural).
Roncancio, DJ; Cutter, SL; Nardocci, AC
Social vulnerability in Colombia
International Journal Of Disaster Risk Reduction