Assessing social vulnerability to wildfires of communities from a relative value approach: a working hypothesis
Authors: Bianco Daniele Del , Velea Ramona , Laterza Riccardo , Ferrari Olivia 
Published: October 2022

The present paper provides an overview of the research carried out by ISIG in the framework of three EU funded projects (ECOSTRESS â€“ DG ECHO, RESILOC â€“ H2020, and FirEUrisk â€“ H2020). Throughout these three research projects, a relevant corpus of literature has been analysed and re-elaborated in order to develop instruments for the assessment of social vulnerability at a local level. This paper provides a theoretical overview on the issue which could serve as a basis for operational approaches in the field of wildfire resilience-building strategies for local communities. Vulnerability, both as a concept and as a phenomenon, has a complex, multifaceted and dynamic nature. Especially after the 1994 World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction in Yokohama, the concept of vulnerability has become very prominent in the field of risk reduction studies. Usually, vulnerability is presented as entailing the concepts of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity/coping mechanisms. Vulnerability studies often focus on different thematic dimensions (e.g., social, economic, physical, cultural, environmental, and institutional vulnerability); every dimension has shaped different research perspectives, academic corpuses of knowledge, and assessment/measurement methods. Social vulnerability, more specifically, focuses on social relations and structures within specific communities or society at large, rather than physical structures, referring thus to their ability/inability to resist adverse impacts from stressors to which they are exposed. Social vulnerability to wildfires refers both to the magnitude of social impact deriving from wildfires, and the inability of local society to cope with stressors to which it is exposed, such as wildfire. It entails both a structural and a processual dimension. According to the FAO Strategy on Forest Fight Management, 90% of wildfires are caused by human activities and behaviours. The paper presents a brief overview of some of the most important attempts to define social vulnerability to wildfires by identifying relevant variables (i.e., indicators) describing exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity/coping mechanisms vis-Ã -vis wildfire risk. Challenges in establishing a clear relationship between established policies/practices and efficiency and efficacy in terms of fire risk reduction are also reported. Assessing vulnerability is even more difficult than defining it. Criticisms towards the attempts of measuring vulnerability are widespread, building on the context-specific and dynamic nature of vulnerability. Moreover, the analysed literature underlines the need to incorporate in the analysis the local knowledge and awareness. This may be achieved by means of participatory assessment approaches. As vulnerability might be understood as a relative concept, most methodologies developed to assess it build on a spatial assessment and an empirical ranking. Under this perspective, the paper argues that a vulnerability score cannot be high or low, but it can be interpreted as high or low by reference (distance) to other units of analysis. This approach might be used to promote participatory vulnerability assessment which could result in peer-to-peer learning processes among networked communities. This methodology has been developed in the EU funded research projects, ECOSTRESS (flood risk) and RESILOC (multi-hazard perspective), and it will be further developed in the framework of FirEUrisk project with a specific focus on wildfires.