Social vulnerability map for the municipality of Natal (Northeast Brazil) at a census sector level

Abstract

Introduction: The concept of vulnerability describes the coexistence, cumulativeness or spatial superposition of poverty, social deprivation and exposure to situations of environmental risk, where there is exposure to risk, incapacity of reaction and difficulty in adapting in the face of risk materialisation. Objective: Evaluate the spatial distribution of Social Vulnerability Risk at a census sector level for the municipality of Natal, Northeast Brazil. Methods: Ecological study that utilised the 895 census sectors of the municipality of Natal. Principal component analysis was applied with eight variables related to human capital, urban infrastructure, income and work, obtained from the 2010 demographic census. The result was categorised from the Z score and the obtained classification was used to build the map. The programs SPSS 22.0 and QGIS 2.8 were employed. Results: Bartlett's test for sphericity obtained p < 0.05, and KMO was 0.769. Communalities presented factor loadings over 0.60. Application of the analysis to the model enabled the extraction of three factors: Factor 1 (related to human capital), Factor 2 (Income and Work), and Factor 3 (Urban infrastructure), explaining jointly 71.56% of total variance. Factor 1 was the one that best described vulnerability in the municipality of Natal, showing areas of low vulnerability in the neighbourhoods of the South and East districts, and high vulnerability in the peripheral zones of West and North. For Factors 2 and 3, most sectors were classified within the range considered as intermediate vulnerability. Conclusion: In the municipality of Natal, there are significant differences in the socioeconomic and demographic conditions of the population, with certain areas experiencing concentrated social and environmental risks.