Urban Vulnerability Assessment: Towards a Cross-Scale Spatial Multi-criteria Approach

This paper analyses the issue of urban vulnerability assessment, aiming to identify appropriate strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change, through decision-making processes that are attentive to the spatial, territorial and geographical scale. In complex decision-making problems, the spatial assessment of homogeneous vulnerability classes can become a useful support for translating the value of vulnerability into intervention priorities and enabling the selection of appropriate intervention alternatives. Urban vulnerability is a complex phenomenon requiring significant and effective indicators that allow an adequate assessment both in quantitative and qualitative terms. Among the different multidimensional approaches present in the literature, as part of the METROPOLIS (Metodologie E Tecnologie integRate e sOstenibili Per l'adattamentO e La sicurezza deI Sistemi urbani) research project, developed by the local unit of the Department of Architecture, University of Naples Federico II, the multi-criteria and multi-group analysis method TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) was applied; this method is particularly suitable in complex decisional contexts, such as the level of vulnerability of a territory, where the kind of information relative to the performances to be evaluated presents considerable levels of uncertainty. The integration of the TOPSIS method in the GIS (Geographic Information System) makes it possible to test the opportunities of an integrated and cross-scale evaluation model, by structuring a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) applied to the case study of Naples, in the South of Italy.