Mexico and social vulnerability to floods in 2020
Mexico and social vulnerability to floods in 2020

Author(s): Luis Alberto Olín Fabela, Fermín Carreño Meléndez
Subject(s): Environmental Geography, Human Ecology, Environmental interactions
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: vulnerability; methodology; indicators; floods
Summary/Abstract: The article proposes to calculate social vulnerability to floods in Mexico with a methodology that integrates different social, economic, and environmental variables and indicators. It uses the Principal Components Analysis, the stratification developed by Dalenius and Hodges, and the Geographic Information System. The objective is to put forward an integrative approach to measuring the vulnerability associated with floods. We start with a review of methodologies proposed so far to then identify the variables and indicators needed to calculate vulnerability index for 2020. The selected variables are associated with marginalisation and the environmental dimension of floods. The elaborated index is presented in the form of degrees of vulnerability and mapped over the municipalities of Mexico, representing the social vulnerability to this hydrometeorological phenomenon in individual areas. The results show that some municipalities, despite suffering floods, are less vulnerable than others and that this degree of vulnerability corresponds to their socioeconomic status and vice versa.

• Details
• Contents