Vulnerable Neighborhood Explorer (VNE): An Open-Source Visual Analytics Tool for Exploring Social Vulnerability to Disasters across Different Neighborhoods

We developed the Vulnerable Neighborhood Explorer (VNE), a geovisual analytics tool that helps decision-makers and researchers identify disaster-prone neighborhoods using socioeconomic and demographic data. By creating neighborhood boundaries from user-provided data, VNE enables analysis of disparities in disaster impacts (e.g., casualties, injuries, infections) and their socioeconomic drivers. It employs clustering algorithms and a dynamic interface with Coordinated and Multiple Views (CMV), linking maps and charts interactively. Features like cross-filtering and brushing instantly update visualizations, allowing seamless exploration of vulnerable neighborhoods and their population characteristics in specific disaster contexts.