Spatial Correlation between Urban Planning Patterns and Vulnerability to Flooding Risk: A Case Study in Murcia (Spain)

Abstract

Cities in the Spanish Mediterranean regions have undergone an extensive process of urban growth in recent decades. This urban transformation has often failed to consider the variable of flooding in its planning. Such a situation, combined with the current meteorological changes derived from climate change phenomena that increasingly cause less frequent but more extreme rainfall events in this part of the planet, has caused a sharp increase in the vulnerability of many urban areas against flooding. This research aims to analyze, from a spatiotemporal approach, in the case study of Murcia, a Mediterranean city in southeastern Spain, the existing spatial statistical correlation between urban planning patterns of growth of the city and the increase in risk due to its current vulnerability to flooding. Using GIS-based multivariate indicators and geostatistical analysis, the behavior patterns of said correlation will be numerically evaluated, and possible future trends and scenarios for this problem will be raised.