Socio-environmental vulnerability in the São Paulo Macro-metropolis’ three main metropolitan regions: a socio-environmental indicators analysis indicators analysis

Abstract

Abstract In this article, the concept of socio-environmental vulnerability is empirically operationalized, with the objective of analyzing situations of socio-environmental vulnerability on intra-urban scale, in a group of 62 municipalities in the three main metropolitan regions of the Macro-metropolis of São Paulo State. The methodology associates two concepts from the recent literature on vulnerability - one social and the other physical-environmental - through an index that integrates socio-demographic indicators from the 2010 Demographic Census with cartographies of areas susceptible to floods and landslides. The results show that 1.8 million people live in areas with high socio-environmental vulnerability that have significantly worse socioeconomic conditions than areas with low and moderate vulnerability, especially regarding the differences in sewage coverage, in the surroundings of households and in the population living in substandard settlements (slums).