1  

Module 10 Summative Assessment

Activity

In this activity you will use the three dimensions of vulnerability that you learned about in this module – exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity – to assess and compare the vulnerability of residents in three coastal U.S. counties to hurricane winds and storm surge. As discussed above, each of these dimensions of vulnerability can have many components, with the exact components varying depending on the system being studied. The box below contains a list of components of the human-environment system that could contribute to the vulnerability of U.S. coastal residents to hurricane winds and storm surge. Each of the components in the box contributes primarily to one of the three dimensions of hurricane vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity, or adaptive capacity. To complete the first part of the activity, match each of these components with the appropriate dimension of hurricane vulnerability: Exposure, Sensitivity, or Adaptive Capacity. You can print out this document and write in the components directly on the diagram. This will help you to answer the questions in the first part of the Module 10 Assessment in ANGEL.

Components To sort the components, create a text box in the correct VSD section in image below and add the component by either typing it or copy and pasting it. Storm Frequency Number of People in Hazard Zone Minority Populations Hard structures such as seawalls and levees

Shape of Coastal Landscape Health Understanding or Perception of Risk Storm Intensity

Vehicle availability Poverty Higher educational attainment Location of infrastructure in high risk areas

  2  

  3  

Now that you have assigned each of the components to the appropriate dimension, we will use measures of these components to evaluate and compare the vulnerability of coastal residents in three U.S. counties to hurricane wind and storm surge. The three counties you will be studying in this activity are Galveston County, Texas; St. Johns County, Florida; and Hudson County, New Jersey. These counties are all exposed to hurricane hazards, however their vulnerability differs in important ways. Over the course of this activity, you will learn how to measure many of the components of vulnerability in these places, and how to compare vulnerability across places and dimensions. Use the tables on Pages 4-5 to record the vulnerability measures for each county. Detailed instructions for how to find each measure are given starting on Page 8. After you have filled in all the measures, answer the questions in the Module 10 Assessment in ANGEL.

  4  

Dimension Exposure Components Coastal Landscape

Hazard Frequency

Hazard Intensity

Number of People in Hazard Zone

Measures Elevation at center of most important urban area (nearest m)

Elevation of high point along

transect from

urban center to

coast (nearest

m)

High point closer to urban center or to coast?

Description of transect (for example, “large hill near the coast, flat near urban center”)

Number of hurricane strikes since 1900

Percentage of these strikes with category >= 3

2010 county population

Galveston County, Texas (Urban area: Galveston)

Hudson County, New Jersey (Urban area: Jersey City)

St. Johns County, Florida (Urban area: St. Augustine)

Dimension Sensitivity Components Population Age Minority Populations Poverty

Measures % Elderly Population (65+)

% Child Population (U-18)

% Black % Hispanic

% in Poverty

Galveston County (Texas)

Hudson County (New Jersey)

St. Johns County (Florida)

  5  

Dimension Adaptive Capacity Components Educational attainment Vehicle availability Household income

Measures Percentage of people who have high school degrees

or higher

Percentage of households which owns vehicles (100%-no vehicles)

Median household incomes (US Dollars)

Galveston County (Texas)

Hudson County (New Jersey)

St. Johns County (Florida)

  6  

Questions: Exposure: Which county shows evidence of a “hilly” coastal landscape (a large elevation change from the coast to the urban center) that might reduce the exposure of its residents to hurricane storm surge? Which county has both a high frequency of storms and a high percentage of intense storms? Based on the 2010 population for the county as a whole, which county has the largest number of people in the hazard zone? Which county is the lowest in elevation, has had no strikes by major hurricanes (category >= 3) since 1900, and has the smallest 2010 population? Sensitivity: Which county has the highest percentage of Hispanic residents? Which county has the highest percentage of elderly residents? Which county has the highest poverty rate? Across all five measures for which you gathered data, is any one county clearly more sensitive than the others? Adaptive Capacity: Which county has the lowest percentage of people who have high school degree or higher? Which county has the highest percentage of households which own vehicles? Which county has the highest median household incomes? Based on the statistics, which one of the three counties has the highest adaptive capacities to hurricane hazards? Imagine that you are an NGO that is looking to invest in a community to help it improve its adaptive capacity for hurricanes. Based on the measures used in this activity, which of these three counties is most in need of your investment?

  7  

Overall Vulnerability: Which county has the second lowest adaptive capacity, and is also one of the most exposed to hurricanes? Which of the following is a reason why residents of St. Johns county may be more vulnerable to hurricanes than residents of the other two counties? Choose one of the following answers.

A. They tend to be wealthier than residents of the other counties (higher median income)

B. They experience more strong hurricanes than the other counties C. They have a higher percentage of elderly persons than the other counties D. They have a higher percentage of minority populations than the other counties

Many studies have pointed out that hurricane frequency is an important determent on people’s hurricane preparedness behaviors. Based on the statistics, in which one of the three counties might people lack of hurricane preparedness behaviors?

When people need to evacuate for hurricanes, families with more children and more elderly generally have difficulty for evacuation because they rely on adults to help them. Based on the statistics, in which one of the three counties might families have more difficulty in evacuation?

  8  

Coastal Landscape

As discussed earlier in this course, the elevation and shape of the coastal landscape plays an important role in determining the exposure of coastal residents to hurricane hazards, particularly storm surge. Generally speaking, areas with higher elevations and steep slopes tend to be less vulnerable to storm surge than areas with low elevation and gradual slopes. We will use Google Earth to explore how these two measures of the coastal landscape – elevation and slope – affect exposure to hurricane hazards in our three counties. These directions will walk you through how to answer the “Coastal Landscape” questions for the first county (Galveston, TX); you will then need to repeat these steps for the other two counties.

To begin, open Google Earth. In the Layers window in the lower-left hand corner of the screen, expand the “Borders and Labels” item and make sure that the “County Names,” “2nd Level Admin Regions (Counties)” and the “Populated Places” items are all checked, as shown in the below screen shot. (It is OK if you also have other items checked.)

Then use the Search box in the upper left-hand corner to search for the location of the first county: Galveston County, Texas. Zoom in on the city of Galveston, the county seat.

Check  here

and  here

and  here

  9  

Zoom until Galveston’s urban area fills most of your window. Your screen should look similar to this:

Zoom  in  here

  10  

To find the elevation and slope of the coast in Galveston, we will create an elevation transect line from a point near the center of Galveston to the ocean. To begin, use the “add path” tool to draw the shortest possible straight line between the center of Galveston (shown by the red dot labeled “Galveston”) and the ocean. The “add path” button is at the top left of the Google Earth window, as shown below (outlined in red).

Clicking this button will open the “New Path” window. Type “Galveston” into the name field. Note that your mouse pointer now looks like a crosshair when you move it over the map.

  11  

With the window still open, use the crosshair to click once near (but not on) the red dot at the center of Galveston, and then click one more time at the nearest point in the ocean. Your screen should now look like this:

Click OK to close the window.

Note  the  straight    line from  Galveston    to  the  ocean.

  12  

In the “places” window on the right-hand side of your screen, find the item named “Galveston” that you just created, right click on it, and select “Show Elevation Profile.”

Your window should now look like this:

  13  

The graph at the bottom of the screen shows the elevation at every point along the line from your starting point (Galveston city center, on the left) and your ending point (the ocean, on the right). If you run your mouse along the length of the graph, a red arrow will show you the corresponding location on the map.

The elevation near the Galveston city center is about 2 m, so for the first measure of the coastal landscape (“Elevation at center of most important urban area”) in the table you should enter “2 m.”

The highest elevation along the transect is 5 m (the “bump” on the right side of the graph), and it occurs closer to the coast than the city center, so your answers for the second and third measures of the coastal landscape should be “5 m” and “coast,” respectively.

If you zoom in on the 5m tall feature near the coast, you can see that this is actually the famous Galveston Seawall, which was built after the devastating hurricane of 1900 to protect the city from storm surge. You can read more about the Galveston seawall and the hurricane of 1900 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Seawall.

  14  

Galveston Seawall under construction in 1905 (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:No._3,_Sea_Wall,_From_West_of_Rapid_Fire_Battery,_Fort_Crockett_-_NARA_-_278143.jpg)

After exploring the transect, complete the final coastal landscape question by briefly describing how elevation changes along the transect. For example, a good description for the Galveston transect would be “large rise near coast (seawall), very flat and low-lying near urban center.”

Now that you know how to create and interpret an elevation transect, repeat these steps for St. Johns County, Florida and Hudson County, New Jersey. In St. Johns county, use St. Augustine as the urban center. In Hudson County, use Jersey City.

Hazard Frequency and Intensity

Hazard frequency and intensity are essential components of most exposure assessments. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides county-level historical hurricane information that we will use to calculate the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in our three counties.

To find this historical hurricane information, go to the csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/ website. Once there, click the “County Strikes” button at the top of the map to turn on the county-level summary of the number of hurricane hits since 1900.

  15  

Next, find your first county of interest (Galveston, Hudson, or St. Johns). You can either use the search tool in the upper left-hand corner of the webpage or you can zoom in on the map. For example, see below for a zoomed-in view of Galveston county.

After you have found your county on the map, click on it. This will open a detailed report about that county’s hurricane history. The hurricane history for Galveston County is shown below.

Click  here

  16  

Each of the green and red vertical lines on the chart represents a hurricane that struck the county. Green lines are weaker hurricanes (category 1 or 2); red lines are strong, major hurricanes (categories 3-5).

For our measure of frequency, count all of the red and green lines on the chart. This is the total number of hurricane strikes on Galveston County since 1900. Tip: because many of the lines are close together, it may be easier to count the number of red and green flags than to count the lines.

To get the percentage of these strikes that were category 3 or stronger (major hurricanes), first count just the number of red lines/flags (this is the number of major hurricane strikes since 1900). Then divide this number (red lines/flags only) by the total number of hurricane strikes (red and green lines/flags). This is our measure of hurricane intensity.

PERCENTAGE OF STRIKES WITH = NUMBER OF RED LINES /

  17  

CATEGORY GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO 3

NUMBER OF RED AND GREEN LINES

After calculating hurricane frequency and intensity for your first county, repeat these steps for the other two counties.

Note: If you have trouble accessing the hurricane history reports, you may also find them directly at the following links. Galveston County: http://csc.noaa.gov/hurricane_county_strikes/index.html?county=galveston&state=texas Hudson County:  http://csc.noaa.gov/hurricane_county_strikes/index.html?county=hudson&state=new_jersey St. Johns County: http://csc.noaa.gov/hurricane_county_strikes/index.html?county=st_johns&state=florida

Number of People in Hazard Zone

A flat shoreline with a history of many intense hurricanes is only highly exposed to hurricane hazards if people actually live in the path of these storms. The county population from the 2010 census provides a measure of the number of people in each of the three counties that may be exposed to hurricane hazards. The distribution of this population within the county is also important; all other things being equal, a county where the population is concentrated close to the coast will be more exposed to hurricane hazards than a county where the population is concentrated further inland. However, since the three counties used in this activity do not extend very far inland, total county population can provide a reasonable estimate of the human component of their exposure to hurricane hazards.

To find the total population for each county from the 2010 Census, navigate to the Census Bureau’s homepage at http://www.census.gov.

On the Census Bureau homepage, there is a tab entitled Data at the top of the page. Hover your cursor over this tab, and select American FactFinder from the menu that appears.

  18  

Click Advanced Search in the navigation bar at the top of the page.

Click Geographies in the left-hand column. Select County – 050 from the drop-down menu. For Galveston County, select Texas from the State menu and Galveston County from the list that appears. Then click Add to Your Selections. Next, for Hudson County, select New Jersey from the State menu. The list of counties will regenerate, and you should select Hudson County, and again, click Add to Your Selections. Repeat these steps for St. Johns County, selecting Florida from the State menu and St. Johns County from the list, and clicking Add to Your Selections one more time. Now close the Select Geographies pop-up, and confirm that these three counties are listed in the Your Selections column to the left.

  19  

Click Topics in the left-hand column. Expand the Dataset item at the bottom, then click on the 2010 Demographic Profile SF link. Now close the Select Topics pop-up, and confirm that the 2010 Demographic Profile SF is listed in the Your Selections column to the left.

In the main table at the center of your screen, click on the link for Profile of General Population and Housing Characteristics: 2010. This will load the 2010 census demographic information for the three counties. This first item in the list, “Total population” is the one you need to complete this measure. Enter the total population for each county into the table on your answer sheet. To switch counties, use the Geography dropdown menu.

NOTE: After you complete this section, leave this browser window open. You will need the data from these tables to complete many of the measures of sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

Instructions: Sensitivity Measures

All of the required sensitivity measures are available from the Census American FactFinder site you used in the previous step. To begin, clear the 2010 Demographic Profile SF dataset by clicking the blue “X” next to this item in the “Your Selections” section of the lefthand column. Click Topics in the left-hand column. Expand the Dataset tab by clicking on the + next to it, and scroll down to 2010 ACS 1-year estimates, which includes data from the American Community Survey conducted in 2010, and close the Select Topics pop-up.

Population Age and Minority Populations Measures

  20  

In the list of tables that appears after completing the above step, select DP05 – ACS Demographic and Housing Estimates. Note all three counties of interest appear in the output table. Total county population at the 2010 Decennial Census is at the top of the table. There is a line for Population 65 and older in the table. Make sure to select the Percent column. To obtain Under-18 population, you will need to subtract the percentage listed in the “18 years and older” row from 100.

To obtain Percent Black, scroll down to the Race section and select the percentage for Black or African American under the One Race heading.

To obtain Percent Hispanic, scroll down to the Hispanic or Latino and Race section and select the percentage for Hispanic or Latino (of any race).

Poverty Measure

Click Back to Advanced Search at the top of the table. Uncheck the box next to DP05. Click DP03 – Selected Economic Characteristics. Under the heading Percentage of Families and People Whose Income in the Past 12 Months is Below the Poverty Level, select the percentage value for All People.

Instructions: Adaptive Capacity Measures

As discussed earlier, adaptive capacity shows people’s abilities to cope with, to mitigate the loss from natural hazards. As a result, adaptive capacity indicators usually describe people’s abilities in the positive perspective. From the list of components above, higher educational attainment, higher median household income, and car availability are more suitable to represent the indicators for adaptive capacity because, generally speaking, people who have higher educational attainment know more about natural hazards, or have more access to the resources that can help them in a hazard event; households which have higher median incomes have the capacity to have better preparedness (buying enough foods and waters or emergency kits) or better mitigation behaviors or activities (like strengthen the structures of the house, buy hazard insurance); households with their own vehicles do not need to reply on public transportations when evacuations.

For the three adaptive capacity indicators, we can use the 2010 1-year American Community Survey data from the Census American FactFinder advanced search site you used in the previous step. Below are detailed steps about how to find the data.

In the Census American FactFinder advanced search site, add the three counties we are interested in and the 2010 ACS 1-year estimates in the left hand column.

  21  

To find data on educational attainment, click on “SELECTED SOCIAL CHARACTERSITICS IN THE UNITED STATES”. Then you will be redirect to a new page like below:

On this page, find or search for “Percent high school graduate or higher” under the subject of EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT. You know can see a Percent of people in the three counties who have high school degree or higher.

  22  

After you have recorded the percentage, click “BACK TO ADVANCED SEARCH” in the top-right of the page.

To find data on vehicle availability, click on “SELECTED HOUSING CHARACTERSITICS” Then you will be redirect to a new page.

On this page, find or search for “No vehicles available” under the subject of VEHICLE AVAILABLE. You now can the see an estimated percent of occupied housing units in the three counties which have no vehicles. To calculate how many households have vehicles, simply calculate: 100 – the percentage of households which has no vehicles.

After you have done the calculation, click “BACK TO ADVANCED SEARCH” in the top-right of the page.

To find data on household income, click on “SELECTED ECONOMIC CHARACTERSITICS”. Then you will be redirect to a new page.

  23  

On this page, find or search for “Median household income (dollars)” under the subject of INCOME AND BENEFITS (IN 2010 INFLATION-ADJUSTED DOLLARS). You now can see an estimate of median household income.