Spatial assessment of local level vulnerability and adaptive capacity to extreme heat: Integrating Phoenix household surveys into a GIS-based assessment

Changing climate is predicted to increase the intensity and impacts of heat waves prompting the need to develop preparedness and adaptation strategies that reduce societal vulnerability. Central to understanding societal vulnerability, is adaptive capacity, the potential of a system or population to modify its features/behaviors so as to better cope with existing and anticipated stresses and fluctuations. Adaptive capacity influences adaptation, the actual adjustments made to cope with the impacts from current and future hazardous heat events. Understanding societal risks, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity to extreme heat events and climate change requires an interdisciplinary approach that includes information about weather and climate, the natural and built environment, social processes and characteristics, interactions with the stakeholders, and an assessment of community vulnerability. This project presents a framework for an interdisciplinary approach and a case study that explore linkages between quantitative and qualitative data for a more comprehensive understanding of local level vulnerability and adaptive capacity to extreme heat events in Phoenix, Arizona. In this talk, we will present a methodological framework for conducting collaborative research on societal vulnerability and adaptive capacity on a local level that includes integration of household surveys into a quantitative spatial assessment of societal vulnerability. We highlight a collaborative partnership among researchers, community leaders and public health officials and discuss recommendations for increasing local level adaptive capacity.