Análisis y diagnóstico de la vulnerabilidad general al riesgo derivado de los procesos de inundación fluvial en el litoral mediterráneo peninsular

Abstract

Floods are the most representative natural hazard in the world according to their frequency and both economic and human losses. Although this phenomenon has an exclusively natural origin, their effects are strongly influenced by the different human actions carried out on the territory, place where the relations between both occurs. Among all these actions, should be highlighted the importance of spatial and urban planning processes, because they represent the theoretical basis responsible for balancing the future spatial distribution of population and activities, with the environmental characteristics of the area under management. However, these processes have been enormously conditioned by different intrinsic and extrinsic factors that have hampered and/or distorted totally their correct implementation. This factor, called in scientific literature as institutional vulnerability, should be considered as a strictly social element, because it represents the result of various human weaknesses (e. g., technical, procedural, negligence, etc.), and it is also related to different socio-economics aspects (e.g., number of dwellings, land price, migratory movements, etc.). In this respect, this Thesis scope, made by compendium of publications, has focused on analysing, disaggregating and quantifying the influence of the different agents that form and/or condition the institutional vulnerability final value. For this purpose, due to the amplitude of the research, different working scales (from local to regional), methodologies and sources have been considered. Nevertheless, as a common nexus of the several papers included in the research, a main methodology developed around the spatial intersection between floodable areas and land uses at local level can be established. In this way, it is possible to evaluate the influence of the different instruments in charge of integrating, directly or indirectly, the flooding variable within the process of territorial planning. In general, each one of the papers included in the Doctoral Thesis has shown how human being has not been able to embed and adapt their development, mainly urban development, with the climatological and geographical characteristics of the environment that surrounds him. This situation has become special relevance in the Spanish Mediterranean peninsular coast, where the deficient or negligent spatial planning converted the urban development in a so characteristic, generalized and disproportionate practice that it could be able to increase the current exposure ratios by almost 260%. Among the different factors responsible for increasing exposure, should be emphasized the strong international migratory movements registered during the last decades, as well as the average price reached by housing in the last housing bubble. Nonetheless, this ratio has not been the same in all the autonomous communities, because the different laws and autonomic sectoral plans effectiveness has been quite varied, situation that has promoted a decreasing spatial-temporal gradient from N to S. On the other hand, urban bubbles influence on exposure has also been verified, since the most significant urban growths are temporarily coincident with two of the three bubbles recognized in Spain. As a conclusion, the results demonstrate three awkward realities: the little or null integration of the legislative precepts regarding flooding within territorial planning; the institutional vulnerability progressive advance and how land depletion represents the main cause of constructive deceleration in these areas.