Coastal Social Vulnerability and Risk Analysis for Cyclone Hazard Along the Andhra Pradesh, East Coast of India

Abstract

Abstract People around the world are prone to frequent and intensive hazards due to the global climate change scenario and human interventions. Particularly, the coastal communities are always prone to various long-term coastal hazards like sea-level rise, shoreline changes, and short-term hazards like tsunami cyclone and storm surge. Coastal Andhra Pradesh state is consisting of 9 district and 670 villages and also having 3.43 Million Population (69.3%). Andhra Pradesh has a vast 972 km long coastline and total coastal area spread over 92,906 km2 comprising the nine coastal districts. Andhra Pradesh state is prone to various natural hazards, especially cyclone and associated storm surges. There is an extreme loss of life and damage to properties caused by these cyclones. During the past 40 years Andhra Pradesh coast experienced more than 62 cyclones including depression, cyclone surge, and severe cyclone surges. Among these cyclones, there were 32 cyclones which affected the Krishna–Godavari region, comprising four districts, namely East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, and Guntur. Therefore, these four districts have been considered for this social vulnerability study to identify the cyclone vulnerable villages. Geospatial applications are used in this study for spatial and non-spatial data processing and spatial analysis. The study indicated that half of the study area (3121.07 km2) lying moderately risk zone and around 7% of the study area observed high vulnerability. This study revealed that the use of geospatial application is most reliable and cost-effective approach for vulnerability and risk mapping and analysis. The result obtained from the present study may serve the baseline information for disaster management planning in the area.