Social Vulnerability as Support for Disaster Management: Discussions from a Method Applied in Brazil that Strengthens the Resilience of Communities

Abstract

Studies on social vulnerability have been consolidated as indispensable for understanding the risks of natural disasters, as well as for the constitution of efficient management strategies to face disasters. Using usual methodologies to determine the dimension of risks, this study presents and discusses social vulnerability at the intra-urban municipal scale, in order to contribute to the understanding of sustainability from social factors, besides subsidizing the integration between citizens and managers in a Brazilian case. Information on the criticality of populations and their disaster response capacity was considered, using public data available in a national database. The analysis of the main components and the cartographic representation of the data resulted in 24 variables, aggregated into five dimensions of analysis for criticality, and in 22 variables, which composed seven dimensions for response capacity. As a product of these two dimensions, it was observed that peripheral areas, with low income, lacking infrastructural resources and close to water bodies are the most socially vulnerable. The methodological strategy adopted can be applied at other scales of analysis. It also provides a basis for the design of actions and planning that contemplate the participation of multiple social actors for possible resilience, besides providing an opportunity for discussions on disaster vulnerability as an indispensable variable for urban sustainability.