Relevant Indicators of Social Vulnerability during Response Phase Context of Flooding inTebingTinggi City, North Sumatra Indonesia

Abstract Indicators to reflect vulnerability to flood vary among scholars. These variations tend to be developed primarily due to heavy dependency on the statistics data availability. Unless employing such predetermined indicators to assess the states of social vulnerability, scholars were less attracted to study what relevant indicators should be in assessing such social vulnerability. Apart from this gap, majority of the studies have overlooked the significance of time-frame contexts of flooding in determining the situation of social vulnerability. Consequently, many conducted the investigations without questioning the relevance of indicators in terms of time-frame contexts. This current study, accordingly, attempts to investigate relevant indicators of social vulnerability to flood with respect to response phase context. With the study area of Tebing Tinggi in North Sumatra, 76 indicators are tested using Likert scale of survey and Principal Components Analysis (PCA). As a result, 6 retained components produce 12 relevant indicators to reflect social vulnerability to flood during response phase; they are: Elderly, Female, Single parent families, Household or per capita income, Children, Poverty and deprivation, Dependency, Informal sector/day labourer, Slum dwellers, Male, Renters, and Unemployment.