Be (and have) good neighbours! Factors of vulnerability in the case of multiple hazards

Francesco Pagliacci and Margherita Russo ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: For any given territory, disaster risk is a function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. The conceptual frameworks for these dimensions are largely debated in the scientific studies, focusing on spatial and temporal references and on system perspective of risk assessment. Despite broad in their scope, the analytical frameworks proposed to analyse policy programmes to reduce risk generally miss that risk indicators should be grounded on geographical and spatial features of the neighbouring territories and not only on communities' behaviour, and their resilience, as the paradigmatic solution in front of system events in areas prone to natural multi-hazard. The definition of "community" and of "neighbourhood" that are relevant for risk assessment cannot be simply defined in terms of absolute size of population or economic activity of individual local units under analysis or of the formal aggregation provided by jurisdictional agreements on specific functions. The paper presents an empirical analysis on spatially-lagged data in Italy, which was massively hit by adverse natural events in the last decade. It suggests to focus on social and material vulnerability, by using the comprehensive indicator at municipality level elaborated by the Italian Institute of Statistics. At the municipality-level, the analysis shows a positive correlation between multi-hazards, on the one hand, and spatially-lagged exposure and vulnerability, on the other. Thus, conditions in neighbouring municipalities would matter in prioritizing policy interventions aiming at mitigating hazard impacts, reducing vulnerability and enhancing communities' resilience. The definition of significant neighbouring spaces opens to a conceptualization of vulnerability grounded on a relational perspective in the creation of collective goods. This could enhance more effective Disaster Risk Reduction programmes.

Keywords: social and material vulnerability indicators; multi-hazard; Disaster Risk Reduction; neighbouring effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q54 R11 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12-17, Revised 2019-11-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Ecological Indicators April.111(2020): pp. 1-10

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/98044/1/MPRA_paper_98044.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:98044

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().