Social vulnerability and local level assessments: a new approach for planning

What is it about?

The concept of social vulnerability refers not only to the characteristics of individuals, but is also related to their relations in society and the features of the environment in which they take place. The assessment of social vulnerability in this paper adopts an inductive approach. The research context of this conceptual and methodological proposal derived from the need to operationalize the concept of social vulnerability as a planning tool. A new index for social vulnerability to natural and technological hazards is proposed. The index takes into account – beyond the standard analysis of exposure or biophysical vulnerability – social criticality and infrastructural support capabilities. Both define the resilience of the territory at a local level. Two examples of application are presented - using the statistical block as the geographical unit of analysis - for the municipalities of Cascais and Lagos, in Portugal. For the two municipalities similar drivers of vulnerability are identified, related to demographic structure, urban and housing conditions, education and socioeconomic situation. The results allow for the definition of adapted and specific strategies of risk mitigation and civil protection measures to distinct types of risk groups and by different stakeholders and risk practitioners. By predicting the impact and the recovery capacity of communities, the results have applicability in several fields of risk governance as, for example, risk communication and involvement, social intervention (health, education and housing), emergency response, contingency planning, early warning and spatial planning.

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