U.S. Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) Grids, 2019

The U.S. Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) Grids, 2019 data set contains gridded layers for the Hazard Vulnerability and Resilience Institute's (HVRI) overall Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for all counties in the United States for 2019. SoVI is a comparative metric that shows where there is an uneven ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from environmental hazards. To calculate SoVI, 29 variables are z-score standardized and then analyzed using Principal Component Analysis to determine factors of social vulnerability. Seven factors of social vulnerability were determined and are added or subtracted based on whether they increase (e.g., dependence and age, lack of health insurance, special needs) or decrease (e.g., wealth) social vulnerability. County SoVI was gridded to a 1-kilometer resolution raster surface to allow users to calculate social vulnerability metrics for any user-defined area within the U.S. A mask was applied for water and for no-population using CIESIN's Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4) Revision 11.

Download the U.S. Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) Grids, 2019 data (44MB GeoTIFF) .

The methods for generating this layer are described in:

Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute. 2024. SoVI. https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/centers_and_institutes/hvri/data_and_resources/sovi/index.php

Morgan, G. R., E. M. Kemp, M. Habets, K. Daniels-Baessler, G. Waddington, S. Adamo, C. Hultquist, and S. L. Cutter. 2024. Defining disadvantaged places: Social burdens of wildfire exposure in the Eastern United States, 2000–2020. Fire, 7, 124. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire7040124

Data set:

Habets, M., S. Derakhshan, C. Hultquist, S. L. Cutter, and S. Adamo. 2025. U.S. Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) Grids, 2019 (Preliminary Release). Palisades, NY: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). https://doi.org/10.7927/p2cb-r151. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR.

Peer-reviewed publication:

Morgan, G. R., E. M. Kemp, M. Habets, K. Daniels-Baessler, G. Waddington, S. Adamo, C. Hultquist, and S. L. Cutter. 2024. Defining disadvantaged places: Social burdens of wildfire exposure in the Eastern United States, 2000–2020. Fire, 7, 124. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire7040124

This is a preliminary open data release, pending peer review of the data and associated journal articles. Following the peer review process, data curation will be completed by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and the data will be disseminated through the EarthData catalog.