New paper on vulnerability of households to floods in Vietnam

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Jiachang Tu, Andrea Reimuth, Nivedita Sairam, Heidi Kreibich, Antje Katzschner, Nigel K. Downes, and Matthias Garschagen have published their paper Profiling households through a combined vulnerability and flood exposure index in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on comprehending the vulnerability of households to floods in Ho Chi Minh City in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Tu et al. developed and combined indices for household vulnerability and flood exposure to examine the spatial patterns of flood vulnerabiblity – revealing insights that can help policymakers develop suitable adaptation measures.

The context

Ho Chi Minh City is highly exposed to climate-related hazards such as flooding, driven by rapid urbanization, low-lying geography, and rising sea levels. Despite increasing flood risks, previous studies have rarely addressed household-level vulnerabilities combining social and physical factors.

Key takeaways

• Flooding experience doesn’t directly determine vulnerability. Instead, social factors like health, housing quality, and economic capacity play a larger role.
• Urban households face higher vulnerability and exposure levels, with notable spatial inequalities across districts.
• Independent household adaptations (e.g., raising floors) are common, but they highlight gaps in institutional support and climate finance accessibility.

The research

Tu et al. developed two indices to comprehensively understand the interplay between social vulnerability and physical flood exposure in Ho Chi Minh City:

• Household Vulnerability Index (HVI): This index captures the social and economic vulnerabilities of households based on six sub-components: socio-economic profile, knowledge and capacity, livelihood strategies, social networks, health, and housing quality. These factors determine how well households can cope with and adapt to flood events.
• Flood Exposure Index (FEI): This index measures the physical flood exposure of households, including factors like floodwater height, duration, velocity, and resulting damage to property and contents.

Through data collected from 991 households across urban, peri-urban, and rural districts, the researchers applied hierarchical weighting and geostatistical analyses to calculate these indices and uncover their spatial patterns.

Read the paper here