Case Study in Poland : Understanding Spatial Diversity of Social Vulnerability to Natural Hazards Based on Local Level Assessments within the European Union

The problems presented in our research were around assessing social vulnerabilities to multi-hazards, along with understanding the vulnerability differentiations in municipalities by country in the EU. The study was carried out based on vulnerability concepts according to Disaster Risk Reduction principles, and also on existing knowledge about social vulnerability within the European Union and the United States. The main aim of this study was to understand approaches to estimation within the EU, and in turn put together an assessment of social vulnerability in various municipalities. We did not include physical factors in this investigation. In Central Europe, including Poland, this quantification type is unavailable. Therefore, our goal was to find out the highest social vulnerability in municipalities built from the available national data in the country. Based on exposure, susceptibility, coping capacity and adaptive capacity, we created a new index: Social Vulnerability to Natural Hazards . Finally, we mapped these and, in turn, were able to identify the most vulnerable municipalities in Poland. We reveal the percentage share by placing them into urban, rural and urban-rural categories. This investigation indicated the need to take locally differentiated steps within a disaster risk reduction policy and so better-targeted actions. We indicated an inventory of useful data for municipalities to social vulnerability mitigation.We suggest that the need to structure and build a universal database in Europe – which includes Central Europe to properly quantify a country's social vulnerability for municipalities – is necessary when comparing disaster risk reduction progress and effectiveness