Assessing and mapping human well-being for sustainable development amid flood hazards: Poyang Lake Region of China

Less developed places that are affected by climatic impacts face great challenges to future development. Place-based assessments that look at both the development level and climatic impacts on development are important for understanding the current state of human well-being and generating insights into how to facilitate sustainable development in the future. We carry out an assessment of human well-being in the Poyang Lake Region of China (PLR), using GIS, remote sensing, and socio-economic data. We measure human well-being in three aspects of (i) development level, (ii) exposure of development to flooding, and (iii) sensitivity of development to flooding. Following the United Nations Development Programme's human development index, we examine development through measures of life expectancy, literacy, and income. We first use a digital elevation model and GIS data on levees to map flood hazard in PLR. Based on the flood hazard map, we then derive quantitative measures of exposure and sensitivity of the development in a town to flooding. Our assessment indicates that development in PLR overall is highly exposed and sensitive to flooding. There are significant variations in different aspects of human well-being among the 298 towns in the region. These variations suggest different sustainable development pathways and policy interventions for different places. We discuss the potential usefulness of our approach for other similar places.