Texas Flood Social Vulnerability Index (TX F-SVI) Research Project

Project summary:

The purpose of this project is to develop a flood-specific SVI (TX F-SVI) for Texas that considers and utilizes parameters applicable and relevant to flooding. A TX F-SVI can be used to guide prioritization for flood planning and flood mitigation funding efforts.

TWDB and other agencies in Texas utilize Social Vulnerability Indices (SVIs) for a variety of floodplain management purposes including, but not limited to, flood planning and flood mitigation funding. There are two widely available sources of SVIs: 1) the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) from the Hazards and Vulnerability Institute at the University of South Carolina and the 2) the SVI created by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control. Both are primarily used at the census tract scale and are developed across the spatial scope of the US. SoVI and SVI are agnostic to the type of hazard for which social vulnerability is being modeled. Although existing SVIs have a wide range of applicable uses, they are neither customized for flood hazard, nor for Texas.

Project deliverable(s):

Texas-focused flood social vulnerability index (TX F-SVI), including sensitivity analysis of the index to quantify robustness and map tools to visualize the TX F-SVI data. The final report will summarize a literature review of the SVI landscape and the interviews of Texas flood experts as well as development of the index.

Contractor (and Principal Investigator, if appropriate):

Research team: The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Patrick Bixler (LBJ School of Public Affairs) and Dr. Paola Passalacqua (Cockrell School of Engineering), Princeton University, Dr. Eric Tate (School of Public and International Affairs)

Contract amount:

Approximately $140,000

Project lead:

Reem Zoun, PE, CFM, Mike Kelly, PE, and Katie Pietsch Koslan, CFM

Project timeline:

November 2022 - April 2025