Fine-scale assessment of inequities in inland flood vulnerability

<b>Technical Documentation for data repository<br></b><b>June 2021</b>prepared by Mathis L. Messager ([e-mail])<br><b>1. Overview and background</b>This documentation describes the data produced for the research article: Messager, M. L., Ettinger, A. K., Murphy-Williams, M., &amp; Levin, P. S. (2021). Fine-scale assessment of inequities in inland flood vulnerability. Applied Geography, 133, 102492. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102492<br>In this study, we examine whether households experience unequal vulnerability to inland flooding based on their race and ethnicity in Washington State, U.S.A. Focusing on individual land parcels, we show that 9% of the population in the state lives in a flood zone, 16% of which are Latinx, even though Latinx residents make up only 8% of the overall population. Beyond disparities in exposure, we found that communities also differ in their vulnerability to floods. We demonstrate that using finer-grain data and improved flood hazard maps leads to starker estimates of total flood exposure and racial/ethnic inequities than using official data and conventional methods. Our results provide key information to advocate for and guide actions to mitigate racial and ethnic inequities in flood vulnerability.<br>The data repository includes the main dataset resulting from this study: tract-level estimates of flood exposure and representativeness of residents across Washington State by race and ethnicity.<br>All scripts used in this study are available for reuse:- https://github.com/messamat/flood_vulnerability_wa for spatial analysis, formatting of parcel database, flood exposure analysis- https://github.com/messamat/flood_vulnerability_waR for data post-processing, and statistical analysis.<br><b>2. Data format and distribution </b>The dataset is distributed both in ESRI® file geodatabase and shapefile formats. A shapefile is provided as a copy for users that cannot read the geodatabase. Each shapefile consists of five main files (.dbf, .sbn, .sbx, .shp, .shx), and projection information is provided in an ASCII text file (.prj). The attribute table can be accessed as a stand-alone file in dBASE format (.dbf) which is included in the Shapefile format.This data layer is provided in the following projected coordinate system NAD_1983_StatePlane_Washington_South_FIPS_4602_Feet (EPSG: 2286).<br><b>File name</b>: tracts_wa_floodinequities | <b>Dimensions</b>: 1,458 rows and 33 columns.<br>See PDF of technical documentation for a description of the attributes. <br><b>3. License and citations</b><i>3.1. License agreement</i>This documentation and datasets are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0 License). For all regulations regarding license grants, copyright, redistribution restrictions, required attributions, disclaimer of warranty, indemnification, liability, waiver of damages, and a precise definition of licensed materials, please refer to the License Agreement (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). For a human-readable summary of the license, please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.<br><i>3.2. Citations and acknowledgements.</i>Messager, M. L., Ettinger, A. K., Murphy-Williams, M., &amp; Levin, P. S. (2021). Fine-scale assessment of inequities in inland flood vulnerability. Applied Geography, 133, 102492. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102492