Uses and limitations of socioeconomic indicators of community vulnerability to natural hazards: data and disasters in northern Australia

Abstract

Advances in computer technology have made very large databases easily accessible to users and managers. The census and land databases are of enormous use to hazard managers and planners. An extensive literature has identified groups of social, economic and demographic indicators that may be combined with physical and land data to predict and categorise levels of community vulnerability. Impact scenario mapping can be very precise and impressive in its detail, but a range of constraints, such as ageing of the data, the arbitrary nature of boundaries, problems of weighting indicators, and categorisation of vulnerability, impose limitations on the use of socioeconomic indicators to predict community vulnerability.