Causal pathways of household flood recovery measures and reduction of unmet social needs

Keywords: Flood, Recovery measures, Housing Improvement, Unmet needs, Co-benefits
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 46

Abstract

The frequency of catastrophic flood events, amplified by climate change has increased substantially in US Midwest (Neri et al., 2019; Reed et al., 2020). Flooding causes major economic and social damage in the region. Because community vulnerabilities increase flood impacts, vulnerability reduction is a crucial part of flood risk management. Many household flood recovery projects often fail to address pre-existing community vulnerability, and in many places, the measurement of such reduction (if any) is difficult to identify. The objective of the project is to determine how flood recovery measures facilitate the reduction of unmet needs in a flood-affected community. These unmet needs can be social, physical, health or economic. The case study is based on two research questions: RQ1) What are the unmet social needs of the flood exposed community? and RQ2) To what extent do flood mitigation measures address unmet social needs? The study area is the City of Dubuque, which provided the data required for this project. To analyze the data, we will use Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). QCA is a comparative case-oriented research methodology that employs Boolean logic to identify parsimonious causal pathways between conjoint conditions and outcomes. We will explore the use of demographic variables and inspection reports as conditions and the change in addressing unmet social and health needs as outcomes. The output will include the identification of the most parsimonious causal pathways leading to the reduction of unmet social needs.