An integrated socio-environmental framework for mapping hazard-specific vulnerability and exposure in urban areas

Abstract

Hazards act upon vulnerability and exposure to create disaster risk. Despite the growth of disaster risk assessments, the number of approaches that develop vulnerability and exposure studies is still small when compared with hazard modelling. In fact, limited studies have considered the relationship between vulnerability and exposure variables and how this can change future management actions on a local scale. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an integrated framework with a combination of social and environmental sciences to map hazard-specific vulnerability and exposure in urban areas. Subjective (e.g. Participatory Approach) and objective methods (e.g. Shannon Entropy and Fuzzy Theory) were integrated into a pixel-by-pixel framework for enhancing the flooding management in Campina Grande, Brazil. The results express the spatial distribution of flood vulnerability and exposure and assess key issues for flood management in different vulnerability categories. Challenges for the integration of socioenvironmental approaches in water resources studies are discussed.

Techniques of Geoprocessing via Cloud in Google Earth Engine Applied to Vegetation Cover and Land Use and Occupation in the Brazilian Semiarid Region

“…However, research shows that this urban growth has been occurring without adequate planning. During rainy periods, failures in the drainage system were observed in some neighborhoods with high population density, causing frequent flooding [10].…”

Flood Risk in Urban Areas: Modelling, Management and Adaptation to Climate Change. A Review

“…It is currently widely accepted that flood risk depends on the combination of flood hazard, exposure and vulnerability. However, while flood hazard has been extensively studied and quantified in recent decades with the aid of the numerical models described in the previous sections, the number of studies that address the estimation and quantification of vulnerability is still relatively small [171], even if in the last five years the number of research papers focusing on vulnerability has increased exponentially [172].…”