Carl Andreas Fossick Ströberg
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Master’s thesis Social Vulnerability Index-assessment for Iceland Carl Andreas Fossick Ströberg Advisor: Kristinn Hermansson, Ph.D. University of Akureyri Faculty of Business and Science University Centre of the Westfjords Master of Resource Management: Coastal and Marine Management Ísafjörður, August/September 2018 Supervisory Committee Advisor: Kristinn Hermansson, Ph.D. External Reader: Matthias Kokorsch, Ph.D. Program Director: Catherine Chambers, Ph.D. Carl Andreas Fossick Ströberg Social Vulnerability Index-assessment for Iceland 45 ECTS thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of a Master of Resource Management degree in Coastal and Marine Management at the University Centre of the Westfjords, Suðurgata 12, 400 Ísafjörður, Iceland Degree accredited by the University of Akureyri, Faculty of Business and Science, Borgir, 600 Akureyri, Iceland Copyright © 2018 Carl Andreas Fossick Ströberg All rights reserved Printing: Háskólaprent, Reykjavík, September 2018 Declaration I hereby confirm that I am the sole author of this thesis and it is a product of my own academic research. __________________________________________ Carl Andreas Fossick Ströberg Abstract Although much attention has been given to urbanization and rural development issues in Iceland, their effect on communities vulnerability to environmental hazards has so far been given less attention. This study assesses the impact that urbanization in Iceland has on the socio-economic conditions that commonly affect the preparedness for, susceptibility to, and ability to recover from the possible impact of environmental hazards. The study applies a social vulnerability index-assessment to identify how a variety of socio-economic variables combine to produce different levels of social vulnerability in Icelandic municipalities. Six components, consisting in total of 17 socio-economic variables, were identified as either increasing or decreasing social vulnerability through different combinations across the country. Results indicate that that urbanization in Iceland has a larger scale effect of decreasing social vulnerability for a majority of its population which is urbanizing, while increasing it for the small minority that reside in municipalities suffering most from demographic and economic decline. Whereas demographic instability, unemployment, and/or a lack of permanent residents tended to increase social vulnerability the most, an unhealthy economic climate was a more common contributor across the country as a whole. A healthy economic climate and conditions on the housing market was identified as the strongest factors for lowering social vulnerability, mainly, but not exclusively in densely populated urban areas. Útdráttur Á meðan málefni er varða þéttbýlismyndun og dreifbýlisþróun á Íslandi hafa vakið talsverða eftirtekt þá hefur skort á umfjöllun um tengsl þeirra varðandi varnarleysi samfélaga gagnvart umhverfishættum. Þessi rannsókn metur þau áhrif sem borgarvæðing á Íslandi hefur á þær félags-hagfræðilegu aðstæður sem venjulega hafa áhrif á undirbúning, áhættu um og hvernig samfélög jafna sig eftir mögulegar umhverfishættur. Í rannsóknin er beitt mælikvarða á félagslegt varnarleysi til segja til um hvernig félags-hagfræðilegar breytur geta í sameiningu valdið mismiklu félagslegu varnarleysi í Íslenskum sveitarfélögum. Sex þættir, sem samanstóðu af 17 félags-hagfræðilegum breytum, áttu hlut í því að annað hvort auka eða draga úr félagslegu varnarleysi í gegnum mismunandi samsetningar. Niðurstöður gefa til kynna að þéttbýlismyndun á Íslandi gegnir veigamiklu hlutverki í að draga úr félagslegu varnarleysi fyrir meirihluta fólks sem býr í samfélögum sem ganga í gegnum þéttbýlismyndun, en eykur félagslegt varnarleysi fyrir þá fáu íbúa í sveitarfélögum sem ganga í gegnum lýðfræðilega og efnahagslega hnignun. Á meðan lýðfræðilegur óstöðugleiki, atvinnuleysi, og/eða skortur á íbúum með varanlega búsetu voru þær breytur sem áttu til með að auka á félagslegt varnarleysi sem mest, þá var erfitt efnahagsástand algengari áhrifaþáttur á landið til heildar. Stöndugt efnahagsumhverfi og aðstæður á húsnæðismarkaði þóttu áhrifamestu þættirnir í að draga úr félagslegu varnarleysi, en þó ekki einir og sér á þéttbýlli svæðum. Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... viii 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Research Question ..................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Study Area ................................................................................................................. 2 2 Social Vulnerability and its Application in Iceland ..................................................... 5 2.1 Social Vulnerability: concepts and applications ........................................................ 5 2.2 Social Vulnerability-assessment and demographic trends in Norway ...................... 9 2.3 Social Vulnerability in Iceland ................................................................................ 11 2.3.1 Social Vulnerability and Demographic trends in Iceland .............................. 11 2.3.2 Age and Social Vulnerability ........................................................................ 14 2.3.3 Economy and Social Vulnerability ................................................................ 18 2.4 Urbanization and Social Vulnerability in Iceland ................................................... 24 3 Method: Designing a Social Vulnerability Index for Iceland ................................... 25 3.1 Design of Social Vulnerability Indicator Dataset .................................................... 25 3.1.1 Spatial scale, resolution, and measurement units .......................................... 25 3.1.2 Social vulnerability indicators ....................................................................... 26 3.1.3 Multicollienarity, uniqueness, and confounding factors ............................... 35 3.2 Principal Component Analysis ................................................................................ 36 4 Results ............................................................................................................................ 41 4.1 Principal component summary ................................................................................ 41 4.2 Components Influence and Spatial Distribution ...................................................... 43 4.2.1 Component 1. Demographics ........................................................................ 43 4.2.2 Component 2. Housing and population density ............................................ 44 4.2.3 Component 3. Infrastructure and family size ................................................ 45 4.2.4 Component 4. Economic ............................................................................... 46 4.2.5 Component 5. Temporary residents and migration ....................................... 47 4.2.6 Component 6. Unemployment ....................................................................... 48 4.3 Social Vulnerability Index-assessment for Iceland ................................................. 49 5 Discussion ...................................................................................................................... 53 5.1 Limits for assessing Social Vulnerability for Iceland.............................................. 53 5.1.1 Data-set construction and component identification in a new context .......... 53 5.1.2 Scales ............................................................................................................. 57 5.2 Social Vulnerability in Iceland ................................................................................ 60 5.2.1 Which are the causes for social vulnerability in Iceland? ............................. 60 5.3 Urbanization and Social Vulnerability Patterns ...................................................... 63 6 Conclusions.................................................................................................................... 67 References .......................................................................................................................... 69 Appendix A ........................................................................................................................ 77 Appendix B................................................................................................................... lxxxiii List of Figures Figure 1. Study area. The maps depict the 8 regions and the borders of the 74 municipalities for which social vulnerability will be measured ......................... 3 Figure 2 Population changes (%) in Icelandic municipalities from 1998 to 2017 .............. 15 Figure 3 Median age and population change in icelandic municipalities between 1998 and 2017............................................................................................................ 16 Figure 4 Median age change in Icelandic municipalities .................................................... 17 Figure 5 Median age change in Icelandic municipalities between 1998 and 2017 ............. 17 Figure 6 Population change against distribution of ITQs in icelandic regions