TITLE:
Vulnerability Assessment to COVID Pandemic in Urban Settlement: A Case Study from India
AUTHORS:
Shahab Fazal, Salma Sultana
KEYWORDS:
Vulnerability, Urban Environment, Pandemic, People, Transformations
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.10 No.1,
January
30,
2022
ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has created worldwide
devastation in every sphere of human life. It has led to the economy slowing
down and has aggravated life, health, and livelihood
vulnerabilities. It spreads across the globe, penetrating indiscriminately
through the cities of global north and south and has a greater urban orientation. The physical, social,
economic and environmental circumstances determine the susceptibility of an
individual, a community or the system to the impact of this pandemic. The
degree of vulnerability of any community strongly influences management
decisions. The concept of societal vulnerability to hazards involves
demographic and socio-economic factors that reflect community resilience. This
study employed secondary data drawn from different sources, to
understand the vulnerability of Aligarh city (India) in the COVID-19 period, the study produced a comprehensive
dataset about natural vulnerability,
built-up vulnerability, social vulnerability and economic vulnerability. This study focuses to present a
comparative analysis of ward-wise vulnerability in Aligarh city for the COVID-19 pandemic. The study designed proxy variables to
measure and compare different levels of vulnerabilities in Aligarh city. The study presented to provide a
tool for ward-wise planning and response to the COVID-19 pandemic in
Aligarh city. The present study indicates
that the vulnerability index is the outcome of the interaction
between physical, built-up, social,
and economic environment. These environmental
conditions are interrelated and have some bearing
on each other also.