UPSC 2019 GS-III · 10 marks · 150 words

Vulnerability is an essential element for defining disaster impacts and its threat to people. How and in what ways can vulnerability to disasters be characterized? Discuss different types of vulnerability with reference to disasters.

What “Discuss” demands

present several distinct facets of the issue and connect them into an argument, giving the competing views real weight rather than one line each.

The characteristic failure: a list of points with no argument running through them.

What a top answer must contain

These are the checkable specifics from the marking standard for this question — the actual case, committee, datum or thinker, not an instruction to “give examples”.

Risk = hazard x exposure x vulnerability / capacity — state the relation before typologising
Physical: building stock, settlement on floodplains and steep slopes; seismic zones IV-V housing
Social: age, gender, disability, caste; evidence that women and elderly suffer disproportionate mortality
Economic: asset-poor households lacking insurance or savings to recover
Environmental: degraded mangroves and wetlands removing natural buffers
Framework anchor: UNDRR terminology and the Pressure-and-Release model

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Vulnerability is an essential element for defining disaster impacts and its threat to people. How and in what ways can vulnerability to disasters be characterized? Discuss different types of vulnerability with reference to disasters.

What a top answer must contain

Now write it, and find out what you actually scored

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