Planning for climate change: evaluating the changing patterns of flood vulnerability in a case study in New Taipei City, Taiwan

Global climate change has resulted in extreme events occurring with increasing intensity and frequency. Due to the limitations of traditional structural engineering measurements, vulnerability measurement has become critical in disaster mitigation according to the IPCC and UNISDR. Currently, flood vulnerability studies focus on evaluating the present state of flood vulnerability at various spatial scales. Different levels of development progress and varying environmental factors result in variations in disaster capacity in urban and rural areas. Therefore, this study explores the temporal and spatial variations of vulnerability in urban and rural built environments by using spatial autocorrelation analysis and principal component analysis. Bivariate local indicators of spatial association (LISA) results show that particular areas maintain high or low vulnerability in both examined years: 2008 and 2018. The critical differences between HH and LL might be caused by different urban development statuses and insufficient emergency or recovery facilities.