Document Type

Report

Publication Date

11-2022

Pages

1-2 pp.

Conference Name

Making Waves in Equitable Coastal Resilience: A National Workshop on Social Equity and Coastal Resilience, November 2022 (Virtual)

Abstract

Summary: Grant applications are increasingly scored using equity, justice, or vulnerability indices that rely on national or aggregate data. However, data at the national level may not translate to the needs of a community. There is a need for metrics that can be applied locally and validly capture the local conditions. Scale is a fundamental consideration as national metrics do not translate to the state level as actionable or transferable, nor do state-level metrics apply consistently to local levels. Of primary concern are logical consistency (e.g., the blurring of metrics when an underserved population may be diluted in representation by adjoining jurisdictions), such as the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) in geography and gerrymandering in political representation, and logical fallacy when metrics at one scale are assumed to represent conditions on the ground at a finer scale. In addition, communities such as neighborhoods are often not conducive to quantitative areal units such as census tracts, block groups, or blocks; overreliance on quantitative spatial indices may confound meaningful action and decision-making. As the resilience landscape is dynamic, data collection must be continuous and ongoing.

Comments

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Grant Award Number 2015-ST-061-ND0001-01. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

ORCID

0000-0003-3599-1417 (Yusuf)

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