ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY TO NATURAL HAZARDS. CASE CULIACÁN, SINALOA

Abstract

In recent years, the attention to natural disasters has focused on the analysis of vulnerabilities, considering that the possibilities to intervene in a natural phenomenon are almost nil. Hence, the objective of this research is to evaluate the vulnerability of the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa to natural threats, considering mainly the economic aspects of its population. It is determined to evaluate the vulnerability through an analysis of principal components (PCA) of the factorial method with SPSS applications. The analysis implies the participation of 14 variables that express the economic vulnerability, selected directly from the 2010 population and housing census database. The concept of vulnerability is conceived holistically to avoid a simplification of the complexity that this phenomenon implies. The results that quantify vulnerability are exposed by means of a georeferenced map at the AGEB level, which categorizes thelevels of vulnerability; very low, low, medium and high. From the results obtained areas of greatest vulnerability are identified, allowing to highlight that only approximately 20 % of the city becomes vulnerable at medium and high vulnerability levels.