Flood vulnerability and commercial activities: the case of the city of Girona, Spain

This paper is based on a case study of the city of Girona in Catalonia, Spain, and analyses the vulnerability of commercial establishments to floods caused by the Onyar River. A mapping and statistical approach (cluster analysis) was applied to the information obtained from 568 questionnaires answer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Disasters 2012-10, Vol.36 (4), p.676-699
Main Authors: Masgrau, Lluís Ribera, Palom, Anna Ribas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Case studies
Catalonia, Spain
Cities
Cluster Analysis
Commerce
commercial activities
Disasters
Economic impact
Economic losses
Economics
Environmental risk
Flood control
Flood mapping
Floods
Foundations
Girona
Humans
Information analysis
Local Government
Natural disasters
Overflow
Permanent establishment
Policies
Profiles
Public policy
Questionnaires
Risk
Risk assessment
Risk Assessment - methods
risk perception
Rivers
Spain
Strategy
Studies
Suffering
Vulnerability
Workshops
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Summary:This paper is based on a case study of the city of Girona in Catalonia, Spain, and analyses the vulnerability of commercial establishments to floods caused by the Onyar River. A mapping and statistical approach (cluster analysis) was applied to the information obtained from 568 questionnaires answered by the shops and the workshops located in the flood risk area. The results obtained allowed the authors to determine five different flood vulnerability profiles of the commercial establishments analysed. These profiles paint a picture of little individual adaptation to the risk and the possibility of suffering, sooner or later, large economic losses due to overflowing of the Onyar River. The authors established a methodology for carrying out a detailed multidimensional analysis of the flood vulnerability of the city's commercial establishments in order to provide the foundations for local government policies and for strategies for shop owners to reduce flood vulnerability.
ISSN:0361-3666
1467-7717
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-7717.2012.01277.x