Towards a more comprehensive approach to social vulnerability and resilience: Linking social vulnerability and adaptive behaviour

Abstract

Individual adaptation is a key component in achieving community resilience and coping with residual risks that may not be addressed by current structural schemes for reducing flood risks. However, the ability for individuals to protect themselves relies heavily on their available resources and capacity. While the social vulnerability concept has primarily focused on material factors, such as income and wealth, which contribute to vulnerability, individual behavioural adaptability has been overlooked in vulnerability assessments.

To address this gap, our study proposes a novel approach to expand social classe analysis using indicators of socio-economic status, and link them with socio-psychological factors stemmed from already established theories in this field or research (e.g. protection motivation theory). By conducting a latent class regression with a regression auxiliary model, we analyzed data from a household survey (n = 1,753) conducted in 11 cities in Saxony, Germany between June and July 2020.

Our preliminary results demonstrate that social classes have a moderating effect on socio-psychological factors that influence individual decision-making on proactive adaptive behaviour, with some psychological factors only significant in certain class memberships. Additionally, we found that the lower class tends to have less implementation of costly adaptation methods, such as structural measures on housing, while less costly measures did not make a significant difference.

Our study recommends that individual intention to take protective measures should be considered in conjunction with social classes linked to resource endowment, and its effect on socio-psychological traits that directly impact adaptive behaviour. This can ultimately inform more effective strategies for achieving community resilience and reducing vulnerability to flood risks.