Economic and Environmental Vulnerability Indicators

Share of agriculture, forestry & fishing in GDP

Rationale and definition

  • Provides information on countries' exposure to shocks caused by their economic structure. Agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing are particularly subject to natural and economic shocks
  • Defined as the percentage share of the agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing sectors (categories A+B in ISIC Rev. 3.1) in the gross value added of a country

Methodology

  • Calculated by dividing the value added of agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing by the total gross value added of all sectors of the economy

Data sources

Remoteness and landlockedness

Rationale and definition

  • Remoteness and landlockedness inhibit trade and growth by increasing transportation costs and limiting the possibilities for economic diversification
  • Defined as a trade-weighted average of a country's distance from world markets 

Methodology

  • Calculated as the weighted average distance from the nearest trading partners with a cumulative share in world trade of 50 per cent, with market shares as weights and adjusted for landlockedness

Data sources

Merchandise export concentration

Rationale and definition

  • Provides information on the exposure to trade shocks resulting from a concentrated export structure
  • Measures the product and market concentration of a country's exports

Methodology

  • Expressed as a Theil index of the exports of a country, with exports detailed by trading partner and product based on the tree-digit SITC product category

Data sources

  • Reported regularly by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in its UNCTADstat database
Instability of exports of goods and services

Rationale and definition

  • Highly variable export earnings cause fluctuations in production, employment and the availability of foreign exchange, with negative consequences for sustainable economic growth and development
  • Defined as the standard deviation of the difference between the value of annual export earnings and its 20-year trend

Methodology

  • Calculated by estimating the trend of export earnings by a mixed-trend linear regression and using the standard deviation of the differences between trend and actual values, weighted with the latest three‐year trade dependency (the ratio of exports plus imports to GDP), as measure of instability

Data sources

Share of population living in low elevated coastal zones

Rationale and definition

  • Provides information on countries' vulnerability to coastal impacts (including sea level rise and storm surges) associated with climate change
  • Measures the share of the population in a country that lives in low elevated coastal zones, defined as areas contiguous to the coast below a certain elevation threshold (currently 5 metres)

Methodology

  • Calculated by dividing the number of people living in areas contiguous to the coast with an elevation of less than five metres by the total population of the country

Data sources

Share of population living in drylands

Rationale and definition

  • Drylands are particularly vulnerable to climate change and other shocks (desertification, land degradation, drought, wildfires, heat stress). Dryland expansion is expected to continue due to global warming, threatening to aggravate poverty as well as food and water insecurity in affected areas
  • Defined as the percentage of population that lives in drylands, defined by long term averages of the ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration (known as aridity index)

Methodology

  • Calculated by dividing the number of people living in arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid lands (i.e., areas with an aridity index between 0.05 and 0.65) by the total population of the country 

Data sources

Instability of agricultural production

Rationale and definition

  • Highly variable agricultural production is indicative of high vulnerability to natural shocks and often reflects the impacts of natural shocks, including droughts and disturbances in rainfall patterns
  • Defined as the standard deviation of the difference between agricultural production and its 20-year trend

Methodology

  • Calculated by estimating the trend of agricultural production by a mixed-trend linear regression and using the standard deviation of the differences between trend and actual values as a measure of instability

Data sources

  • Calculated by the CDP secretariat based on data reported annually by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its FAOSTAT database
Victims of disasters

Rationale and definition

  • Provides information on a country’s vulnerability to disasters, in particular the human impact of disasters associated with natural hazards
  • Measures the share of population who are victims of disasters, defined as deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters. Persons directly affected are persons who have suffered injury, illness or other health effects; who were evacuated, displaced, relocated or have suffered direct damage to their livelihoods, economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets

Methodology

  • Calculated by dividing the annual number of victims by the total population of the country over a period of 15 years and then taking the simple average

Data sources

  • Reported regularly by the Sendai Framework Monitor of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) as data on people killed and on people affected to the global SDG database