Mapping socioeconomic vulnerability to meltwater: a case study in Western Himalayas
Student name: Mr Pradeep Vashisht
Guide: Dr Chander Kumar Singh
Year of completion: 2013
Host Organisation: The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Shresth Tayal
Abstract: Natural hazards are inevitable, which considerably affect people’s living conditions. It becomes
really important when this impact of nature is related to melt water of the streams, since access
to the freshwater is the prime necessity of life. Even though hazards cannot be prevented, but the
preparedness for any threat is really important, which may lead to decrease destructive effect for
communities. Identification of vulnerable areas could help in better planning in disaster
management. In this respect, the thesis aims to develop a methodology in order to define
vulnerable groups in terms of their dependency on melt water. This work outlines a framework
for analysing socio economic vulnerability to the melt water in the Western Himalayas. The
approach highlights the uses of socio economic indicators and techniques of GIS and Remote
Sensing to determine the concentration of the vulnerable area in terms of availability of melt
water. Vulnerability is the exposure of human population groups to dependence stress of basic
household and economic deeds as a result of the availability of fresh or melt water.
No standard method of assessing the vulnerability to melt water exists as such. However various
scientific communities have followed different approaches. A GIS-based approach is developed
to find the vulnerable areas with the consideration of socio economic and biophysical indicators
that are selected by literature review. Relative weights are assigned to the selected vulnerability
indicators on the basis of expert opinions and using the overlay analysis in GIS environment. In
the end it was found that areas with high density and lesser slope were the most vulnerable area.
Also the areas where agriculture in intensively performed are also on the higher risks.
Keywords: Vulnerability, Melt water, Socioeconomic Indicators, GIS, Overlay Analysis
