The pillar handbook
Methodology 0.3.0
The Habitance score is a weighted geometric mean of eight pillars. This handbook is one short chapter per pillar, in the order of their default weights: what the pillar measures, the indicators and named sources that carry it, what it cannot tell you, and two or three real places where the pillar is instructive to read. The chapters are a sequence — each ends where the next begins — and none of them recommends anything.
Every indicator table in these chapters is generated from the same published data as the place pages, under the same frozen methodology version, so the handbook cannot say one thing while a score says another. The methodology page holds the formulas, the weights, the confidence rules and the full frozen document; the handbook holds the reading of them.
The chapters
- 1. Climate Resilienceweight 25 · 2035 · 2050
Extreme heat, wet-bulb days, drought, flood, wildfire and cyclone exposure.
- 2. Water Securityweight 18 · 2035 · 2050
Baseline and projected water stress, groundwater trend, supply reliability.
- 3. Stabilityweight 18 · now
Institutional quality, rule of law, and macroeconomic footing.
- 4. Health & Longevityweight 10 · 2050 (UN medium)
Life expectancy, care capacity and air quality.
- 5. Infrastructureweight 10 · now
Power reliability, connectivity, logistics and digital government.
- 6. Safetyweight 6 · now
Experienced violence, conflict proximity, and seismic/volcanic hazard.
- 7. Community & Quality of Lifeweight 8 · now
Social support, education, language access and nature access.
- 8. Food & Landweight 5 · 2050
Growing conditions, arable land per person, and import dependence.
How to cite it
Cite the methodology version with the chapter. Published scores are immutable — a new data vintage or a model change opens a new version rather than editing this one — so a citation that names the version will still mean the same thing later, and the changes register records when anything moved.
Habitance, "The pillar handbook", chapter <n>: <pillar>. Methodology 0.3.0. https://habitance.io/methodology/handbook