Assessment of Aggregation Frameworks for Composite Indicators in Measuring Flood Vulnerability to Climate Change

Abstract The IPCC Third Assessment Report presents a conceptual framework for vulnerability to climate change with the three attribute components of exposure, sensitivity, and coping. Since the vulnerability assessments have been conducted mainly by the composite indicators aggregated from the IPCC’s components, it is necessary to assess aggregation frameworks for constructing the composite indicators that have an influence on vulnerability assessment outcomes. This study therefore investigates the robustness of assessment outcomes for flood vulnerability to climate change through a comparative analysis of the six vulnerability indicators aggregated from the IPCC’s components by the conventional aggregation frameworks. The comparative analysis has been illustrated through both the possible combinations of reference values for vulnerability attribute components and a case study on the flood vulnerability assessment to climate change for coastal areas in the Republic of Korea. The study demonstrates that there can be large fluctuations and reversals in ranking orders across the six vulnerability outcomes by different aggregation frameworks. It concludes that for flood vulnerability assessment to climate change in coastal areas, the vulnerability indicator needs to be aggregated by a multiplicative utility function from all the three assessment components with positive elasticity to vulnerability.