Damaging flood risk in the Portuguese municipalities

Abstract Modeling and understanding the impact of climate change on flooding processes in Mediterranean climate areas, namely in southern Europe, is a complex endeavor that must also consider losses and vulnerability patterns. Understanding disaster risk involves multidimensional and multiscale information, demanding the development of methods that integrate hazard, exposure, capacity, and vulnerability data, strengthening the scientific capacity to support policy makers and practitioners. Assuming that vulnerability plays a relevant role in explaining the degree of loss due to natural hazards and the ability to recover, the present research compares a flood susceptibility index with components of a social vulnerability index and the historical record of flood losses, aggregated at the municipal level. Cross tabulation, cluster classification, and principal components analysis are performed using these three assessment domains in order to identify and interpret their interrelations. The purpose of this research is to understand the contexts of flood disasters and risk for the 278 municipalities of mainland Portugal and to contribute to the strategic allocation of resources for flood risk management.