Sub-Index: Social Vulnerability

The social vulnerability sub-index identifies places where communities may be particularly impacted by, or least able to recover from, wildfire due to factors such as income, prevalence of health issues, or other demographic characteristics. We reviewed indicators across 14 existing indices of social vulnerability and selected indicators most salient to wildfire to ultimately develop the social vulnerability sub-index. The final set of indicators encompassed nine different themes, and all indicators were summarized at the level of U.S. census tracts. Values in this layer represent 10 quantiles (1 being lowest social vulnerability, 10 being the highest), which were scaled relative to values within each U.S. Forest Service region.For full details, please see: Lacey LM, Suraci JP, Littlefield CE, Busse BS, Dickson BG. 2024. Informing proactive wildfire management that benefits vulnerable communities and ecological values. <i>People and Nature.</i>