Abstract

ZUNIGA, Emmanuel et al. A new model to analyze urban flood risk. Case study: Veracruz, Mexico. Nova scientia [online]. 2022, vol.14, n.28, 00022.  Epub Aug 01, 2022. ISSN 2007-0705.  https://doi.org/10.21640/ns.v14i28.2956.

Due to their frequency and magnitude, urban floods affect different regions of the world. For this reason, several methodologies integrate information on hazard (H) and vulnerability (V) using a «Classic» Risk (R) model for risk analysis. However, this combination of variables generally overestimates the risk in places where the frequency of flooding is low. In this work we propose a model that we call «Adjusted Risk» (AR) that integrates values ​​of urban proximity (p) to bodies of water, as a tool to assess the risk of floods. The comparison between the R and AR models showed a higher efficiency of AR to reproduce the frequency of floods for 210 cities in Veracruz, while R overestimated the level of risk in cities with low frequency of floods. The correlation values associated with the frequency of flood events for a period of 45 years (1970-2015), allow to establish the utility of the AR model to evaluate the risk of urban floods when using different scales of analysis.

Keywords : urban flooding; flood risk; hazard; environmental vulnerability; Veracruz; Mexico; classic risk model; adjusted risk model; land use; cover change; urban areas; Pearson’s correlation coefficient; bodies of water; water; climatic change.