Multiscale Analysis of Coastal Social Vulnerability to Extreme Events in Brazil

Abstract

Abstract Issues related to prevention and mitigation of the impacts of extreme events, intensified by climate changes, have been receiving progressive attention from the academic community. The impacts are increasingly expensive for the society, particularly in the coastal zones, where population growth and concentration of economic activities modify the landscape and alter the natural balance of coastal processes, contributing to the increase of the population’s vulnerability to these events. Considering the growing need to measure the social vulnerability of coastal populations and the lack of studies that focus on the effects of changing spatial scales over vulnerability analysis, the aim of this article is to propose a methodology for obtaining a multiscale Coastal Social Vulnerability Index to extreme events (SVI-Coast) for the 281 Brazilian coastal municipalities. The proposed methodology employed data from the most recent available national demographic census (2010), over which descriptive and multivariate statistical techniques were applied, considering three units of spatial aggregation: states, municipalities, and census sectors. The results show that in Brazil there is a tendency to the concentration of greater social vulnerabilities in the North and Northeast regions and that the key variables responsible for this are the income and access to infrastructure, which are underprovided in these regions. This methodology can be replicated on multiple spatial scales, contributing to provide scientific knowledge capable of assisting decision-making by local and regional managers, especially in the identification of priority areas, which need urgent actions for the mitigation and reduction of coastal social vulnerability.