Susan Cutter and Christina Finch at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, US, have taken data on wealth, among other things to determine which areas in the U.S. would be hardest hit in case of a natural disaster.
The maps go back to 1960 and run forward to 2010. The good news? Overall vulnerability has gone down over the years. But areas growing in immigrants seem to be getting worse.
The paper is available
online - it's from the National Academy. The title "Temporal and spatial changes in social vulnerability to natural hazards."
- New Scientist