Vulnerability Indices of a Glof-Prone Community : A Case Study of Sosot Village, Ghizar District, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan (T-1283) (MFN 5630)

Abstract

One of the major impacts of global climate change, GLOF (Glacial lake outburst flood) has increased in frequency throughout the world due to rise in temperature. Pakistan has also seen this upswing of GLOF in Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya region increasing the human and environment susceptibility in affected area. Sosot, a village which has faced some devastating GLOF events in the past, is taken as a case in this study. In 2012, the GLOF event took place which caused monetary damage of around 100 million rupees. The detailed analysis shows that high temperature and heavy precipitation were most important GLOF triggering factors. At present, despite the social cohesion and education, this progress oriented community is unable to strengthen economically. The GLOF proneness and recurrence causes loss of infrastructure, livestock and agriculture. The vulnerability of the village to GLOF is estimated using Flood Vulnerability Index (FVI) based on four components as social component, economic component, environmental and physical factors. The social vulnerability has come out to be 0.506, economic vulnerability is 0.949, environmental vulnerability is 0.613 and the physical vulnerability is 1. The total vulnerability of Sosot village is calculated to be 0.767 which indicates that this village is highly vulnerable to GLOF events. All the components are playing important role in increasing the vulnerability but the most important components are economic and physical which are making the village highly vulnerable to GLOF event. Therefore, there is a dire need of suggested structural and non-structural measures to be taken for this community to decrease vulnerability to GLOF.