A Conceptual Model of Probability for Determining Population Vulnerability to Climate

Abstract The population's vulnerability assessment is an analysis of the expected impacts, risk modeling, exposure, sensitivity and lack of adaptability of a specific region or sector to the effects of extreme weather events. The vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and a lack of ability to cope and adapt. One way to analyze these very different aspects is through a stochastic process, such as conditional probability. In this article, a conceptual model is presented to assess the population's vulnerability to the climate, taking into account one of the susceptible regions of Brazil, the Northeast. The results show that the proposed indicator IVPopS presents the most vulnerable central semi-arid region, in addition to a detailed assessment in each component of the indicator. Production areas such as Petrolina-PE have high levels of risk (0,604), exposure (0,863), sensitivity (0,910), while the inability to adapt is low (0.002).