Coastal Vulnerability Indicator Library

The Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts – Toolkit (RISC-KIT) FP7 EU project (2013-2017) aims to produce a set of three innovative and EU-coherent open-source and open-access methods, tools and management approaches (the RISC-KIT) in support of coastal managers, decision-makers and policy makers to reduce risk and increase resilience to low-frequency, high impact hydro-meteorological events. Risk is defined within this project as the product of the probability of a hazard, the exposure of receptors and their vulnerability. Representing the vulnerability and the potential role of DRR in their reduction is crucial for supporting the decision. As such a specific task of the RISC-KIT project (Task 2.2) is dedicated to developing a Library of Vulnerability Indicators to input in the RISC-KIT Toolkit and to test the tools on 11 case studies. The deliverable “Coastal Vulnerability Indicator Library” is composed of a Microsoft Excel database and a guidance document. The deliverable introduces the necessary concepts and methods, provides a review and a collection of existing indicators and proposes methodologies for developing new indicators. The Library has been constructed around four categories: Built Environment, Population, Ecosystem and Systems. The Library also identifies Disaster Reduction Measures influencing vulnerability and proposes methods to include within the assessment of vulnerability.