Assessing social-ecological vulnerability and risk to coastal flooding: A case study for Prince Edward Island, Canada

Traditional flood risk assessment studies mainly looked at potential exposures and damage to human settlements, without considering the whole social-ecological systems. This study presents a comprehensive flood risk assessment considering hazard characteristics, exposure, and vulnerability of social-ecological systems in the coastal areas of Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada. An indicator-based multi-criteria analysis method is adopted to estimate vulnerability and risk index for each local census block in the affected area under two scenarios (flood without climate change and flood with climate change). The result shows that the vulnerability and risk scores vary along the coastal area, with higher scores in the central and western regions. Social elements contribute more to vulnerability and risk index compared to the ecological elements in both urban and rural areas. The study also discussed the potential application of the risk assessment results for developing appropriate flood risk management strategies for coastal communities and vulnerable ecosystems.