Index of vulnerability to floods for the Jewish autonomous region population

In the Russian Federation and other countries floods are getting more sever and occur more often. Among the Russian regions suffering from floods are the regions of the southern Far East, located in the Amur River basin; two severe floods occurred there in 2013 and 2019. The concept of flood risk consists of two components: exposure (physical factors) and vulnerability (socioeconomic factors). Flood vulnerability index evaluates the impact of floods on socioeconomic development of a studied region. It consists of vulnerability, liquidation capacity and adaptive capacity indices. An earlier study calculated risks of floods in the regions of Russia. However, calculation on the local level is more representative in showing most vulnerable territories within a region. This study describes an indicator method, earlier applied in the the Krasnodar region, for calculating the indices. The author presents the indices calculations for five districts of the Jewish autonomous region, on base of the socioeconomic parameters taken from regional databases. According to the calculation results, the Obluchensky district shows the lowest vulnerability index (0.32), while the Oktyabrsky district - the highest one (0.78). For the other three districts and Birobidzhan, the indices are average (0.46-0.66). The indices are also compared taking into account the population density. The table and the map with colour gradients show the study results. In the following research these results are planned to be used for a comprehensive flood risk assessment based on physical and socioeconomic parameters.