Assessment of Cyclone Vulnerability, Hazard Evaluation and Mitigation Capacity for Analyzing Cyclone Risk using GIS Technique: a Study on Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, India

Cyclones are one of the devastating natural hazards in the earth that have extensive consequences on both life and livelihood. Assessment of cyclone risk is important not only for the survival of people but also for designing adaptation strategies in major cyclone-prone areas. Risk can be defined as the integrated function of vulnerability, hazard, and mitigation capacity. Risk assessment is a very protracted task needing analysis of multiple factors which are also changes with changing geographical location. Thus, we applied the multi-criteria decision-making technique to assess the block-level risk to cyclone in the Sundarban region, India. The weight-based analysis reveals that nearness to coastline and distance from cyclone tract have the greatest vulnerability exposure; windspeed has the highest hazard score; and nearness to cyclone shelter and cyclone awareness, on the other hand, has utmost mitigation capacity to cyclone risk analysis. The risk analysis shows that out of the total blocks (19) in the Sundarban, nearly half of the blocks are with very high to moderate cyclone risk with the least mitigation capacity to cope with such natural hazards. The blocks like Gosaba and Kultali to be found in the southern portions and nearby to the coast exposed more risk to cyclone while those situated farther to the coast in the central and northern parts exposed low risk. The findings of the present study may have high implications for developing more mitigation capacity in a very-high- to a moderate-cyclone-risk area. Therefore, the applied approach can help the local authorities in identifying vulnerable and hazard areas and building actionable strategies for mitigation and reworked copy of cyclone hazards in the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve.