Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Developing A Framework To Identify Local Business And Government Vulnerability To Sea-Level Rise: A Case Study Of Coastal Virginia, Sarah L. Stafford, Alexander D. Renaud

May 11, 2018: Adaptation Policy

In this paper we develop methods for identifying local business and government vulnerabilities to sea-level rise and the natural hazards associated with it. Unlike the fairly large literature on measuring social vulnerability to natural hazards, there are very few papers that discuss methods for measuring local business or local government vulnerability even though businesses and governments are also differentially affected natural hazards. Our goal is to create measures that are easily replicable using readily available data and that are easy to explain to local planners, policy makers, and citizens. We implement our measures of local business and government vulnerability for …