the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Community-driven natural hazard and physical vulnerability assessment in a disaster-prone urban neighborhood
Abstract. Effectively reducing the risk of disasters in urban neighbourhoods is a key policy priority, which is becoming more pressing due to climate change. However, disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation efforts are often hampered by data gaps regarding the physical vulnerability and local impacts of hazards at the neighbourhood level. These gaps are particularly pronounced for informal settlements and marginalized communities of cities in the Global South, which are frequently invisible in official hazard and risk maps. Community-generated data and participatory methods are promising approaches to address these gaps, but there is a lack of guidelines and empirical examples of effective integration of communities into vulnerability assessment. This study presents the co-production of a physical vulnerability assessment framework, between academia, practitioners, and community researchers, using an iterative and easily replicable methodology. Working with community researchers from the self-constructed community El Pacífico in Medellín (Colombia), we developed a hazard perception exercise based on vulnerability indicators and produced hazard perception and physical vulnerability usable maps. We show how this work was able to refine the spatial scale of the hazard maps available for the neighbourhood, going beyond the city planning tools and enabling a building-scale vulnerability assessment that is valuable not only to support community decision-making and planning but also to advocate for public interventions towards reducing disaster risks.
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2024-221', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 Jul 2025
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Thank you for the comment. The paper presents an important gap linking academia, practitioners, and local people. However, numerous physical vulnerabilities via observation surveys are already present. However, verification and validation from the community are often lacking. This an important study which would be valuable. Here are my comments.
1. Please add research questions somewhere before the objectives.
2. "In this paper, we provide a brief context about the study location (Section 2), outline the methodology that we co-created60
with the community to integrate perceptions of risk into hazard and vulnerability assessments alongside the final physical
vulnerability maps created for each hazard (Section 3), as well as present a discussion of contributions (Section 4), followed by
a short conclusion (Section 5)." This may be deleted.3. The paper fails to acknowledge similar studies that have used similar methods to measure physical vulnerability. Notably, FEMA154 (see 10.1007/s42452-019-1681-z) or similar methods (10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105206) or more advanced methods. The paper should at least mention some papers.
4. I see some methods in L105. Can be moved to the Intro/LR section.
5. Figure 4. Hazard/risk perception literature is almost missing. There are studies that have linked physical vulnerability with perception (10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101317). Or how hazard maps are correlated with perceived extent (10.1007/s40808-022-01442-2)
6. 3.1.2 Literature review & Derive vulnerability factors for assessment. This belonged to the LR section.
7. Overall, the maps constructed are good. But to m,e the Methods section is too long (which is ok). I would suggest remodeling the paper with a focus on the methods proposition rather than studying with a very good methodological section. This will give validity to the long method section. (10.1016/j.apgeog.2011.07.002) A good paper which focus on methods first and then its application.
8. MOre details on data analysis on qualitative assesssment from community is needed. "e present the positive outcomes from the application of our methodological approach, this evidence was drawn from informal conversations with the community leaders and researchers and, is presented in quotes". How was this evidence analyzed? Thematic analysis, etc?
9. Some paras are too small. Merge them.
10. Some references are incomplete. Recheck.
Overall, a well-written and excellent paper.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-221-RC1
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