Integrating Typhoon Destructive Potential and Social-Ecological Systems Toward Resilient Coastal Communities

Abstract

The resilience of coastal communities becomes a critical issue of the social-ecological system adapting to impacts from hazards on coastal well-being. This paper formulates a framework integrating typhoon destructive potential and social-ecological system from a perspective of coastal resilience. Typhoon destructive potential is interpreted using the Power Dissipation Index as a metric. We use the distributional models in geographic information systems to identify the spatial hotspots of high Power Dissipation Index along the coast of Mainland China. Furthermore, we evaluate the community resilience in all identified hotspots with place-based indicators within five potential dimensions (Social, Ecological, Institutional, Economic, and Safety). Though the results show no significant long-term trends in the typhoon destructive potential, statistically significant interdecadal variations are identified in different hotspots during 1949–2014. The resilience assessment results reveal that ecological (predisaster defense) and safety resilience (postdisaster support) are critical issues in achieving coastal community resilience. We argue that improving the ecological stewardship (having great predisaster defense) and adopting integrated approaches contribute to resilience enhancement, providing opportunities to support all the dimensions of community resilience via improving the social-economic-ecological nexus. The integration of typhoon destructive potential and social-ecological system helps to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 13 through risk-informed decision-making. The results from this study have important policy implications for local-scale planning incorporating place-based indicators.