An integrated framework to assess social inequity and flood susceptibility: a case study of Harris County, Texas
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Flooding disproportionately affects marginalized communities, yet flood risk assessments rarely integrate social and environmental dimensions within a single spatial framework. This study develops an integrated methodology for assessing flood vulnerability in Harris County, Texas, by combining a Social Inequity Index (SII), built using Principal Component Analysis on socio-economic and demographic variables, with a Flood Susceptibility Map (FSM), built using the Analytic Hierarchy Process on environmental and topographic indicators. The two are integrated into a composite Flood Vulnerability Map (FVM) and examined using spatial statistics — hot spot analysis, Moran's I, and (Multiscale) Geographically Weighted Regression — to test whether, and where, social inequity and flood risk spatially coincide. Results show that flood susceptibility and social inequity are only weakly correlated at the county level ( r = 0.042), but exhibit meaningful localized overlap: 12.83% of census tracts ( n = 143) are simultaneously classified as hot spots for both flood susceptibility and social inequity, with Black, Hispanic, and elderly-disabled populations disproportionately represented in these zones. These findings suggest that county-wide statistical association is a poor proxy for compounded risk, and that spatially explicit, tract-level analysis is necessary to identify where equity-focused flood resilience investment is most needed.
Source: Progress in Disaster Science
Institutions: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Universitat Jaume I
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,120
OpenAlex ID: W4414203757