Assessing and mapping human well-being for sustainable development amid flood hazards: Poyang Lake Region of China Qing Tian a, * , Daniel G. Brown b , Shuming Bao c , Shuhua Qi d a Department of Computational Social Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA b School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, 440 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA c China Data Center, University of Michigan,1007 E Huron St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA d Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China article info Article history: Received 8 January 2015 Received in revised form 16 June 2015 Accepted 16 June 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Human well-being Sustainable development GIS Quantitative assessment Less developed rural areas Climatic hazards abstract Less developed places that are affected by climatic impacts face great challenges to future development. Place-based assessments that look at both the development level and climatic impacts on development are important for understanding the current state of human well-being and generating insights into how to facilitate sustainable development in the future. We carry out an assessment of human well-being in the Poyang Lake Region of China (PLR), using GIS, remote sensing, and socio-economic data. We measure human well-being in three aspects of (i) development level, (ii) exposure of development to flooding, and (iii) sensitivity of development to flooding. Following the United Nations Development Programme's human development index, we examine development through measures of life expectancy, literacy, and income. We first use a digital elevation model and GIS data on levees to map flood hazard in PLR. Based on the flood hazard map, we then derive quantitative measures of exposure and sensitivity of the development in a town to flooding. Our assessment indicates that development in PLR overall is highly exposed and sensitive to flooding. There are significant variations in different aspects of human well- being among the 298 towns in the region. These variations suggest different sustainable development pathways and policy interventions for different places. We discuss the potential usefulness of our approach for other similar places. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Less developed places that are affected by climatic hazards face great challenges to future development. While improving devel- opment levels in the developing world has proved to be difficult in general (Collier, 2007; UNDP, 1990e2014; World Bank, 2002), extreme climatic events impose an additional constraint on development in such places (Adger, Huq, Brown, Conway, & Hulme, 2003, 2006; Kates, 2000; Kates & Dasgupta, 2007; Takeuchi & Aginam, 2011). Meaningful place-based assessments that examine development and climatic impacts on development in an integra- tive manner are important for understanding the current state of human well-being and can suggest where and how to make ad- justments or improvements in the future, facilitating sustainable development. A number of assessment frameworks that are relevant to development and climatic impacts have been used in the literature. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has used the Human Development Index (HDI) to assess human development for its annual human development reports since 1990 (UNDP, 1990e2014). HDI combines variables that represent life expec- tancy, literacy, and income to measure human development in a country. Though the specific indicators and methods that UNDP uses to calculate HDI have been evolving over time, life expectancy, literacy, and income remain to be the three key dimensions of human development in HDI. These three dimensions of HDI have also been applied to examining human development at other levels than countries (Beavon & Cooke, 2003; Harttgen & Klasen, 2012; Kumar, 1991; Song & Ma, 2004; Thapa, 1995). In natural hazard research, context-based environmental hazard mapping is often performed to assess the impacts of exposure to climatic hazards (Apel, Thieken, Merz, & Bl€ oschl, 2004; Büchele et al., 2006; Meyer, Scheuer, & Haase, 2009). Such assessments place an emphasis on * Corresponding author. Research Hall, Room 374, 4400 University Drive, MS 6B2, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. E-mail address: qtian2@gmu.edu (Q. Tian). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.06.007 0143-6228/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Applied Geography 63 (2015) 66e76