Evaluation of Social Vulnerability to Flood Hazard in Basilicata Region (Southern Italy)

Abstract

Floods are the most common natural hazards causing damage to properties and loss of life worldwide. They are not preventable but vulnerability assessments, hazard mitigation, and effective emergency management plans can reduce their impacts and facilitate recovery actions. Floods can have different impacts depending on the local physical conditions and on the social context represented by the economic and cultural patterns of a specific community. Social vulnerability is the susceptibility of social groups to the adverse impacts of natural hazards, including disproportionate death, injury, loss, or disruption of livelihood. Therefore, the social vulnerability analysis becomes of primary importance in understanding the main factors influencing the capacity of a specific community to anticipate, cope with, and recover from a flood event. In this context, this paper investigates the correlation between flood hazard and socio-economic factors across the Basilicata Region (southern Italy). The aim of this research is to evaluate flood hazard and social vulnerability index through a Geographic Information System (GIS) approach. Multivariate factor analysis was applied in this work to construct an overall social vulnerability index which was combined with the flood hazard distribution. Our results underline the presence of 107,587 people with a high level of both flood hazard and social vulnerability.

Mapping Social Vulnerability to Multi-Hazard Scenarios: A GIS-Based Approach at the Census Tract Level

“…Examples of significant events with a declared state of emergency that occurred in the Basilicata Region in the last ten years are listed in Table 1. These events led the scientific community to develop relevant research for landslide characterization [20,22,25,26] and flood monitoring, vulnerability and risk mapping [24,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. In terms of national and regional hazard data, Figure 1 shows the spatial distribution of the landslide and flood hazard in the Basilicata Region, derived from Italian Institute for Environmental Research and Protection (ISPRA) 2020-2021 mosaic layers.…”

“…After an extensive literature search focused on the hazard context in the Basilicata Region (Section 1.1), the municipalities choice was based on the results obtained via the flood hazard mapping performed in previous works [31] coupled with the neighboring municipalities affected by significant landslide events in the past (Section 1.1) and intersected by the landslide hazard layer in GIS environment (Figure 1). In particular, the intersection tool allowed us to conduct both qualitative and quantitative investigations based on the percentage of the territory potentially affected by landslide, flood, and multihazard scenarios for each census tract.…”

“…In particular, the intersection tool allowed us to conduct both qualitative and quantitative investigations based on the percentage of the territory potentially affected by landslide, flood, and multihazard scenarios for each census tract. The cartographic methodology was specifically explained in Lapietra et al [31]. However, the landslide hazard layer was also included in this analysis in order to construct a multi-hazard map.…”

“…The flood hazard map provided by Lapietra et al [31] detects the municipalities located on the Ionian coast as the most exposed to flood hazard in the case of the LPH scenario. These municipalities are Bernalda, Pisticci, Scanzano Jonico, Policoro, Rotondella, and Nova Siri.…”

Local Governance Support Tools for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation Strategies: The EU Contribution in the Case Study of the Municipality of Naples

“…The concept of vulnerability is defined here as "susceptibility to harm" of a given "exposed element" (people, assets, ecosystems) under the effect of a given hazard (be it rapid-or slow-onset). In other words, vulnerability represents "the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected" [15,17,18]. It is a key aspect in DRR and CCA.…”