Development and evaluation of social indicators of vulnerability and resiliency for fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico

With the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and more recently the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, disaster questions about the vulnerability and resiliency of fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico have been on the minds of local, regional, and national governmental agencies as well as numerous researchers and non-governmental organizations. The continued natural and now technological disasters in the Gulf of Mexico have placed a great deal of strain on communities dependent upon both commercial and recreational fishing. In 2008 a two-year long study to develop social indicators of vulnerability and resiliency for fishing-reliant communities in the Gulf of Mexico was undertaken. In addition, as part of the research design the accuracy of the social indicator descriptions of these places with ethnographic studies was triangulated. Comparisons of the combined ethnographic rankings with the quantitative indicators were positive and statistically significant. The research design thus confirmed that the developed indicators were, in fact, reliable measures for the concepts under consideration.

► We developed social indicators of vulnerability and resilience for fishing communities.
► Quantitative indicators were developed using secondary data.
► Quantitative indicators were ground-truthed through ethnographic research.
► The two techniques matched on seven of nine communities (77.78%).
► The indicators were therefore a reliable measure of resilience and vulnerability.