The relationship between sociotechnical vulnerability and coastal erosion in rural Alaska

Abstract

Arctic Alaska is warming quickly, resulting in the disruption of water-ice patterns, permafrost destabilization, and severe weather. As such, coastlines erode at increasing rates, compromising vulnerable communities’ infrastructure systems. However, despite the intersection of vulnerability and erosion, disaster literature typically focuses on this intersection in acute, rather than chronic (i.e., erosion), disaster contexts. Here, a natural disaster is defined as a severe disruption of the functioning of a community due to hazards interacting with exposure, vulnerability, and capacity, leading to significant losses and impacts (human, economic, etc.). As a result, the correlation between vulnerability and erosion in rural Alaska is largely unknown, limiting the effectiveness of disaster planning. This study identifies the sociotechnical components of vulnerability most strongly correlated with the presence of erosion. Equipped with LANDSAT imagery and a machine learning approach, we quantify erosion in 44 coastal Alaska communities from 2005 to 2020. We employ Kendall Tau-b correlation to quantify the correlation between coastal erosion and sociotechnical data from the 2020 American Community Survey. Results demonstrate that erosion here is correlated with: (1) percent of the population that is Alaska Native, (2) the percent of the population that is 65 and older, and (3) the percent of total housing units built between 1940 and 1949. Policy suggestions include incorporation local input and Indigenous knowledge into adaptation activity and disaster response, as well as dedicated resources to support the elderly population in chronic disaster scenarios.