Shiraz Nasr
Social Vulnerability to Extreme Heat in the City of Toronto: An Assessment using GIS-Based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis © 2009
Concern over the impact of extreme heat upon human health has increased in recent years. This study aims to assess the spatial distribution of social vulnerability to heat waves in the City of Toronto on a census tract level. The ordered weighted averaging procedure, a multi-criteria decision analysis method available in geographic information systems, was employed to compute vulnerability scores using different decision strategies. The assessment was based on two scenarios; the first used socio-economic characteristics of the city and the second added a physical characteristic represented by the mean surface temperature to the socio-economic characteristics. The most vulnerable census tracts appeared in areas with low socio-economic status in the first scenario, while in the second scenario, the most vulnerable census tracts fell in the hottest areas. GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis proved to be useful for exploring different scenarios of heat vulnerability.