The application of frameworks for measuring social vulnerability and resilience to geophysical hazards within developing countries: A systematic review and narrative synthesis
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Abstract
Quantifying and mapping resilience and social vulnerability is a widely used technique
to support risk management, with recent years seeing a proliferation of applications
across the Global South. To synthesise this emerging literature, we conducted a systematic
review of applications of social vulnerability and resilience frameworks in Lower
and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) using the PRISMA methodology. 2152 papers were
extracted from 15 databases and then screened according to our pre-defined criteria,
leaving 68 studies for full text analysis. Our analysis revealed that: (1) Most studies
consider vulnerability or resilience to be generic properties of social systems; (2)
Few papers measured vulnerability or resilience in a way that tests whether they are
relatively stable or dynamic features of social systems; (3) Many applications rely
on stock applications of existing frameworks, with little adaptation to specific cultural,
societal or economic contexts; (4) There is a lack of systematic validation; (5) More
hypothesis-driven studies (as opposed to descriptive mapping exercises) are required
in order to develop a better understanding of the mechanisms through which vulnerability
and resilience shape the capacity to prepare for, respond and recover from disasters.