Assessment of Socioeconomic Vulnerability to Floods in the Bâsca Chiojdului Catchment Area

• Main Authors: REMUS PRĂVĂLIE, ROMULUS COSTACHE
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cluj University Press 2014-12-01
• Series: Romanian Review of Regional Studies
• Subjects: floods; vulnerability; socioeconomic risk elements; Bâsca Chiojdului catchment area
• Online Access: http://rrrs.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/arhive/Artpdf/v10n22014/RRRS102201411.pdf

Hydrological risk phenomena such as floods are among the most costly natural disasters worldwide, effects consisting of socioeconomic damages and deaths. The Bâsca Chiojdului catchment area, by its morphometric and hydrographic peculiarities, is prone to generate these hydrological risk phenomena, so there is a high vulnerability in the socioeconomic elements. This paper is focused on the identification of the main socioeconomic elements vulnerable to hydrological risk phenomena such as floods, based on the assessment of their manifestation potential. Thus, following the delimitation of areas with the highest flood occurrence potential (susceptibility to floods), major socioeconomic factors existing in the basin, considering human settlements (constructions), transport infrastructure, and agricultural areas (the most important category), were superimposed. Results showed a high vulnerability for all three exposed socioeconomic elements especially in valley sectors, of which household structures were the most vulnerable, given both their importance and the high number of areas highly exposed to floods (approximately 2,500 houses and outbuildings, out of a total of about 10,250, intersect the most susceptible area to floods in the study area).