Assessment of urban vulnerability towards floods using an indicator-based approach – a case study for Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Regularly occurring flood events do have a history in Santiago de Chile, the capital city of Chile and study area for this research. The analysis of flood events, the resulting damage and its causes are crucial prerequisites for the development of risk prevention measures. The goal of this research is to empirically investigate the vulnerability towards floods in Santiago de Chile as one component of flood risk. The analysis and assessment of vulnerability is based on the application of a multi-scale (individual, household, municipal level) set of indicators and the use of a broad range of data. The case-specific set of indicators developed in this study shows the relevant variables and their interrelations influencing the flood vulnerability in the study area. It provides a decision support tool for stakeholders and allows for monitoring and evaluating changes over time. The paper outlines how GIS, census, and remote sensing data as well as household surveys and expert interviews are used as an information base for the derivation of a vulnerability map for two municipalities located in the eastern part of Santiago de Chile. The generation of vulnerability maps representing the two different perspectives of local decision makers (experts) and affected households is exemplified and discussed using the developed methodology

Participatory flood vulnerability assessment: a multi-criteria approach

“…The AHP and ANP tools allowed the documentation of different viewpoints about the criteria importance without suppressing dissenting voices, enabling divergent framing assumptions to become explicit. This was central to this study, as vulnerability remains an ill-structured problem (Müller, 2011), where there are multiple solution paths and uncertainty about the input criteria and their importance. Therefore, we believe that systematically showing contrasting views and the underlying reasons for different interpretations is a more transparent approach than deriving a single solution.…”

“…Key challenges include (1) selection of the input criteria, (2) data standardization, (3) determination of criteria importance, (4) consideration of relationships between them, and (5) results validation (Beccari, 2016;Müller et al, 2011;Rufat et al, 2015). Typically, the rationale for decisions regarding criteria selection, weighting, and aggregation is either unstated or justified based on choices made in previous studies.…”

Holistic approach to flood risk assessment in areas with cultural heritage: a practical application in Ayutthaya, Thailand

“…Vulnerability is commonly defined as referring to the conditions and capacities that make a system or an individual susceptible to harm as a result of a hazard (UNISDR 2009;Muller et al 2011;Vojinovic and Abbott 2012). An understanding of flood vulnerability typically requires knowledge of the possible impacts of flooding.…”

“…Vulnerability is often assessed using sets of site-specific indicators or measurements (Cutter et al 2000;Birkmann 2007;Muller et al 2011;Wilhelmi and Morss 2013;Vojinovic 2014). Multiple aspects can be combined using multicriteria methods ).…”

“…2 Flood hazard and vulnerability assessment As described, flood risk is commonly defined as the product of hazard, (the physical and statistical characteristics of the floods) and the vulnerability of exposed environment (Wisner et al 2004;Apel et al 2009;Muller et al 2011). The flood risk assessment process involves hydrological and hydraulic modelling to estimate the hazard, and socioeconomic studies to estimate the vulnerability to flooding (Cunha et al 2011;Mynett and Vojinovic 2009).…”