Who can you trust? Implications of institutional vulnerability in flood exposure along the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

Abstract

Over the last years, the Spanish Mediterranean coastal area has undergone significant increase in the number of floods and their consequential damages. However, according to climatic records, this trend is more related to an exposure multiplication than with the increase of extreme rainfall events. Within this framework, it is interesting to evaluate how the different local governments have influenced on urban growth in flood-prone areas through a deficient spatial planning, also to evaluate its possible relation with sociodemographic factors. The proposed methodology is based on two institutional vulnerability index related to the local spatial planning intersection with the hydrological modelling data, and a multiple linear regression of these index value and several sociodemographic parameters (population, tourists, housings, etc…). The final results demonstrate how local governments increase exposure and its relationship to population growth, foreign tourist and economic causes.