IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2411.10628.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Feature Importance of Climate Vulnerability Indicators with Gradient Boosting across Five Global Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Lidia Cano Pecharroman
  • Melissa O. Tier
  • Elke U. Weber

Abstract

Efforts are needed to identify and measure both communities' exposure to climate hazards and the social vulnerabilities that interact with these hazards, but the science of validating hazard vulnerability indicators is still in its infancy. Progress is needed to improve: 1) the selection of variables that are used as proxies to represent hazard vulnerability; 2) the applicability and scale for which these indicators are intended, including their transnational applicability. We administered an international urban survey in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Johannesburg, South Africa; London, United Kingdom; New York City, United States; and Seoul, South Korea in order to collect data on exposure to various types of extreme weather events, socioeconomic characteristics commonly used as proxies for vulnerability (i.e., income, education level, gender, and age), and additional characteristics not often included in existing composite indices (i.e., queer identity, disability identity, non-dominant primary language, and self-perceptions of both discrimination and vulnerability to flood risk). We then use feature importance analysis with gradient-boosted decision trees to measure the importance that these variables have in predicting exposure to various types of extreme weather events. Our results show that non-traditional variables were more relevant to self-reported exposure to extreme weather events than traditionally employed variables such as income or age. Furthermore, differences in variable relevance across different types of hazards and across urban contexts suggest that vulnerability indicators need to be fit to context and should not be used in a one-size-fits-all fashion.

Suggested Citation

  • Lidia Cano Pecharroman & Melissa O. Tier & Elke U. Weber, 2024. "Feature Importance of Climate Vulnerability Indicators with Gradient Boosting across Five Global Cities," Papers 2411.10628, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2411.10628
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.10628
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alex Greer & Sherri Brokopp Binder, 2017. "A Historical Assessment of Home Buyout Policy: Are We Learning or Just Failing?," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 372-392, May.
    2. Samuel Rufat & Eric Tate & Christopher T. Emrich & Federico Antolini, 2019. "How Valid Are Social Vulnerability Models?," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(4), pages 1131-1153, July.
    3. William Curran-Groome & Hallee Haygood & Miyuki Hino & Todd K. BenDor & David Salvesen, 2021. "Assessing the full costs of floodplain buyouts," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 1-23, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Curran-Groome, William & Hino, Miyuki & BenDor, Todd K. & Salvesen, David, 2022. "Complexities and costs of floodplain buyout implementation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    2. Linda Shi & Anjali Fisher & Rebecca M. Brenner & Amelia Greiner-Safi & Christine Shepard & Jamie Vanucchi, 2022. "Equitable buyouts? Learning from state, county, and local floodplain management programs," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1-20, October.
    3. Shaieree Cottar & Brent Doberstein & Daniel Henstra & Johanna Wandel, 2021. "Evaluating property buyouts and disaster recovery assistance (Rebuild) options in Canada: A comparative analysis of Constance Bay, Ontario and Pointe Gatineau, Quebec," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(1), pages 201-220, October.
    4. Gainbi Park & Zengwang Xu, 2022. "The constituent components and local indicator variables of social vulnerability index," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 110(1), pages 95-120, January.
    5. Nori Tarui & Seth Urbanski & Quang Loc Lam & Makena Coffman & Conrad Newfield, 2023. "Sea level rise risk interactions with coastal property values: a case study of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(9), pages 1-21, September.
    6. William Curran-Groome & Hallee Haygood & Miyuki Hino & Todd K. BenDor & David Salvesen, 2021. "Assessing the full costs of floodplain buyouts," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Zachary T. Goodman & Caitlin A. Stamatis & Justin Stoler & Christopher T. Emrich & Maria M. Llabre, 2021. "Methodological challenges to confirmatory latent variable models of social vulnerability," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 106(3), pages 2731-2749, April.
    8. Elyse Zavar & Sherri Brokopp Binder & Alex Greer & Amber Breaux, 2023. "Using the past to understand future property acquisitions: an examination of historic voluntary and mandatory household relocations," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 116(2), pages 1973-1993, March.
    9. Eugene Frimpong & Jamie Kruse & Gregory Howard & Rachel Davidson & Joseph Trainor & Linda Nozick, 2019. "Measuring Heterogeneous Price Effects for Home Acquisition Programs in At‐Risk Regions," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(4), pages 1108-1131, April.
    10. Sarah L. Jackson & Sahar Derakhshan & Leah Blackwood & Logan Lee & Qian Huang & Margot Habets & Susan L. Cutter, 2021. "Spatial Disparities of COVID-19 Cases and Fatalities in United States Counties," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Matheus Pereira Libório & João Francisco Abreu & Petr Iakovlevitch Ekel & Alexei Manso Correa Machado, 2023. "Effect of sub-indicator weighting schemes on the spatial dependence of multidimensional phenomena," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 185-211, April.
    12. Ronak Paul & Sean Reid & Carolina Coimbra Vieira & Christopher Wolfe & Yuan Zhao & Yan Zhang & Rumi Chunara, 2023. "Methodological improvements in social vulnerability index construction reinforce role of wealth across international contexts," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-017, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    13. Xuchao Yang & Lin Lin & Yizhe Zhang & Tingting Ye & Qian Chen & Cheng Jin & Guanqiong Ye, 2019. "Spatially Explicit Assessment of Social Vulnerability in Coastal China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-20, September.
    14. Batabyal, Sourav & McCollum, Meagan, 2023. "Should population density be used to rank social vulnerability in disaster preparedness planning?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    15. Beth Tellman & Cody Schank & Bessie Schwarz & Peter D. Howe & Alex de Sherbinin, 2020. "Using Disaster Outcomes to Validate Components of Social Vulnerability to Floods: Flood Deaths and Property Damage across the USA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-28, July.
    16. Adriana Galderisi & Giada Limongi, 2021. "A Comprehensive Assessment of Exposure and Vulnerabilities in Multi-Hazard Urban Environments: A Key Tool for Risk-Informed Planning Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-19, August.
    17. Nicolás C. Bronfman & Paula B. Repetto & Nikole Guerrero & Javiera V. Castañeda & Pamela C. Cisternas, 2021. "Temporal evolution in social vulnerability to natural hazards in Chile," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 107(2), pages 1757-1784, June.
    18. Gavin Smith & Wendy Saunders & Olivia Vila & Samata Gyawali & Samiksha Bhattarai & Eliza Lawdley, 2021. "A comparative analysis of hazard-prone housing acquisition programs in US and New Zealand communities," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 11(3), pages 392-403, September.
    19. Amanda Whittemore Martin & Mai Thi Nguyen, 2021. "Neighborhood change during managed retreat: buyouts, housing loss, and White flight," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 11(3), pages 434-450, September.
    20. Yuan Zhao & Ronak Paul & Sean Reid & Carolina Coimbra Vieira & Chris Wolfe & Yan Zhang & Rumi Chunara, 2024. "Constructing Social Vulnerability Indexes with Increased Data and Machine Learning Highlight the Importance of Wealth Across Global Contexts," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 175(2), pages 639-657, November.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2411.10628. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.