Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Social Vulnerability in the United States from 1970 to 2010

Socialvulnerabilityhasbeenanimportantconcepttocharacterizetheextenttowhichhumansociety isvulnerabletohazards.Althoughitiswellknownthatsocialvulnerabilityvariesacrossspaceand overtime,thereisonlyapaucityofstudiestoexaminethebasicpatternsofthespatialandtemporal dynamicsofthesocialvulnerabilityintheUnitedStates.Thisstudyexaminesthespatialandtemporal dynamicsofsocialvulnerabilityoftheU.S.countiesfrom1970to2010.Foreachdecade,social vulnerabilityofcountiesisquantifiedbythesocialvulnerabilityindex(SoVI)usingcounty-level social,economic,demographic,andbuiltenvironmentcharacteristics.TheSoVIismainlydesignedto quantifythecross-sectionalvariationofsocialvulnerabilityandisnotconducivetodirectcomparison overtime.Thisstudyimplementsamethodologythatintegratesquantilestandardization,sequence alignmentanalysis,andclusteranalysistoinvestigatehowsocialvulnerabilityofU.S.countieshas changedovertime.TheauthorsfindthatU.S.countiesexhibitdistinctivespatialandlongitudinal patterns,andtherearecounties/areaswhichhavepersistenthighorlowsocialvulnerabilityaswell asfrequentchangeintheirsocialvulnerabilityovertime.Theresultscanbeusefulforpolicymakers, disastermanagers,planningofficials,andsocialscientistsingeneral. KeywoRDS Clustering, Natural Hazards, Sequence Analysis, Social Vulnerability, Spatial Temporal Dynamics