Flood vulnerability and its influencing factors
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Flood vulnerability and its influencing factors Santosh Pathak1,2 · Hari Krishna Panta2 · Thaneshwar Bhandari2 · Krishna P. Paudel3 Received: 2 April 2020 / Accepted: 27 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Riverine floods are the major weather-related disaster affecting both agriculture production and physical infrastructures in Nepal. Climatic factors aggravated by anthropogenic measures contribute to increasing household-level vulnerability in the country. We use face-toface interview data collected from 217 households located in the Saptari district of Nepal to understand the household-level vulnerability of farmers impacted by floods. Our model combines variables of household sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and exposure to flooding in an integrated vulnerability index to assess the vulnerability status of households and factors influencing the vulnerabilities. Findings indicate a high vulnerability level of most households stems from higher exposure to flood and lower adaptive capacity. Using the ordinal response model, we find that indicators such as credit access, migration, femaleproportion, and perception and familiarity with flood incidences positively influence the vulnerability. However, gender, livestock owned, per capita income, adaptation measures, and distance to water bodies have a negative influence on the vulnerability level. These findings can be used to tailor micro-level policies to minimize the impact of floods in the district. Governmental level effort, such as river control strategy, is needed to minimize the flood risk at a larger scale in the future. Keywords Vulnerability · Flood · Flood vulnerability index · Ordinal response model · Semi-parametric approach JEL Classification Q12 · Q54 · C14
* Santosh Pathak [email protected] 1
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
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Department of Agricultural Economics, Postgraduate Program, Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
3
Gilbert Durbin Endowed Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, Louisiana State University (LSU), LSU Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
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Natural Hazards
1 Introduction Flood is a major natural disaster with global losses worth ~ US$ 24 billion in 2018 alone and ~ US$394 billion in the last decade (Munich 2019). Climate change, untimely precipitation, and rising sea-level are further likely to amplify flood hazards. Moreover, global flood exposure is predicted to escalate three times by 2050 due to the growing population from economic expansion in the flood-prone areas (Aerts et al. 2018; Jongman 2018). This expected impact is likely to disproportionately affect developing countries due in part from their extensive exposure, climate-sensitive livelihood, resource limitations, and restricted adaptive capacity (UNFCCC 2007). Flood dynamics have been studied from the perspective of genesis, geomorphology, hydroclimatology, r
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