NHESS Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences NHESS Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 1684-9981 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/nhess-10-2229-2010 Increased risk of flooding on the coast of Alicante (Region of Valencia, Spain) Olcina Cantos J. 1 Hernández Hernández M. 1 Rico Amorós A. M. 1 Martínez Ibarra E. 1 Inter-University Institute of Geography, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain 03 11 2010 10 11 2229 2234 Copyright: © 2010 J. Olcina Cantos et al. 2010 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/10/2229/2010/nhess-10-2229-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/10/2229/2010/nhess-10-2229-2010.pdf

In the past two decades, episodes of flooding on the coast of Alicante (Spain) have led to substantial losses in human life in economic terms. With increased exposure to these phenomena comes also increased vulnerability. Given the various effects of flooding in areas of similar exposure, differences in vulnerability across regions at risk need to be analysed also in terms of the socioeconomic factors of the groups of society that may be affected, and of their perception of risk. This paper studies the increased risk of flooding in three locations on the Alicante coast as a result of urban occupation of areas subject to this hazard. The consequences of the most recent episodes in this area are analysed and a risk assessment, using survey-based research in the affected areas, is performed.

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