Community social vulnerability indicies - Community Social Vulnerability Indicators for the California Current

This research provides a quantitative means of determining which communities in West Coast coastal counties are most connected to fishing, both commercial and recreational fishing, and allows for a quantitative approach to concepts like community “engagement” and “dependence” on fishing. The project employs a methodology that incorporates a diverse range of secondary data and proxy measures of human community attributes with the aim of considering multiple social and ecological community dimensions simultaneously. We analyze demographic, economic, geographic, meteorological, quality of life and fisheries-specific data for all coastal communities at the U.S. census-designated place (CDP) level in Washington, Oregon and California. A factor analysis approach to these data allows us to examine relative similarities among variables for a set of proposed indices of community vulnerability and connections to fishing, and allows us to compare communities relative to one another for each measure. Social vulnerability and fishing dependence composite scores are available for multiple years, and this is a multi-year project developed, carried out and updated each year in coordination with all NMFS fishery management regions. These community-level analyses are also conducted in concert with the analysis of primary fisheries participation data, collected via a coast-wide survey of West Coast fishery participants. We will implement the coast-wide survey at regular intervals, including in 2019, providing us with longitudinal data and potential time series analyses to be paired with our broader community indicators.
These data represent generalized social vulnerability composite scores for each of 880 West Coast communities.