Assessing Social Vulnerability to Coastal Hazards: An Examination on Sagar Island of Sundarban Delta

Assessing social vulnerability to coastal hazards is a technique that identifies and measures the degree of copping ability of the social groups from coastal hazard impact. Sagar Island, in the Sundarban delta is one of the unstable landmass where a lot of people each year become homeless by any type of environmental hazards. In the present study, an attempt has been made to assess mouza level social vulnerability of Sagar Island based on census derived socioeconomic data. The study following the methodology developed by HERO vulnerability assessment protocol Wu et al. (2002), tends to build a composite index for measuring social vulnerability of coastal people to the environmental hazards. Population density, household size, female population, dependent people having age less than six years, male literacy rate, female literacy, agricultural dependency, landless workers, people in household industries are the nine most relevant indicators in the calculation of social vulnerability index (SoVI). Finally, the results reveal that the mouzas in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) are less vulnerable than central part. Only the two mouzas viz. Gangasagar and Sibpur are highly vulnerable that situated at the southern CRZ. The study draws attention to coastal scientists and policy makers for adopting effective mitigation measures from the coastal hazard impacts by studying micro level social vulnerability index of the mouzas in situ.