HAZARDOUS HYDROLOGICAL

PHENOMENA AND SOCIAL

VULNERABILITY IN RUSSIA

Speaker:

Stepan Zemtsov,

PhD, senior researcher

Kazan

21.09.2016

2ND INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE

Laboratory of complex ecological and

geographical research in the Arctic,

Lomonosov Moscow State University

PURPOSE and MOTIVATION

2

The relevance of our research:

• More than 10 million people, or 7.2 per cent of the Russian population, are

exposed to hazardous hydrological phenomena (Shakhramanjyan, 2001;

Ministry of Finance, 2011)

• Krymsk tragedy in 2012 have caused nearly 200 fatalities and about €300m of

economic damage (Kotlyakov et al., 2013)

• The main gap for Russian studies of natural hazards is a lack of works dedicated

to social vulnerability of communities

The purpose of the research:

• to estimate the potential influence of hazardous hydrological phenomena on

social and economic development in Russia

The (null) hypothesis:

• real social loses (e.g. death) from hazardous hydrological events are similar to

economic damage (e.g. destruction of physical infrastructure) but the first one is

underestimated because of low “value of life” in Russia

RESEARCH PLAN

3

2. Where are the main risk areas in Russia? Do

regional and municipal societies have the same

vulnerability?

3. Krymsk municipal district is the most vulnerable

and risky area in Krasnodar region, isn’t it?

4. But can we verify index values by field data?

5. How to compare social loses and economic

damage? Is human life is priceless or “free” in Russia?

1. Can we use international methods (World Risk

Index) for social risk assessment on regional and

municipal level in Russia?

1.1. WORLD RISK INDEX

4

(Birkmann, 2007; Fekete 2010; Fuchs et al. 2012, Birkmann et al. 2013)

Vulnerability is “the degree of damage that can be expected depending on

the characteristics of an ‘element at risk’ with respect to a certain hazard”

(Fuchs et al. 2011)

(World Risk Index, 2016)

5

Exposure

Vulnerability High exposure but low vulnerability

(World Risk Index, 2016)

1.3. WORLD RISK INDEX

6 But is it correct for large countries such as Russia?

(World Risk Index, 2016)

World Risk Index for Russia is 3,58% (out of 100%) (128th out of 171

country)

Exposure – 9,38%

Vulnerability – 38,15%

2.1. REGIONAL AND MUNICIPAL RISK INDEX

(Zemtsov et al., 2014, 2016)

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R = INH × IE × IV

• INH – natural hazard index (how many events, how often, how

intensive) (Gladkevich et al., 2012)

• IE – exposure index (share of potentially exposed people) (Ministry of finance, 2011)

• IV – vulnerability index (relative share of people in danger)

IV = 0.33 × (IS + ILCC + ILAC)

IS – susceptibility subindex (infrastructure, housing, poverty)

ILCC – lack of coping capacity subindex (authorities,

preparedness, medical services, social networks)

ILAC – lack of adaptive capacity subindex (education, investment)

But what does it mean on a real territory? POTENTIAL FLOODING IN KRASNODAR REGION

2.2. REGIONAL EXPOSURE INDEX

Data on subsidies of ministry of finance

8

RICE FIELDS. KUBAN DELTA

SLAVYANSK-ON-KUBAN

2.3. REGIONAL VULNERABILITY INDEX

The most risky are underdeveloped regions?

9

Is it the case on municipal level? 2010

2014

2.4. REGIONAL RISK INDEX

Relative potential social losses

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Number of significant flood events during

the observation period (from XVIII century)

in Russia on Black Sea Rivers, events per

10 years

(Mikhailov et al., 2010)

Why Krasnodar region is one of the leaders? Cuban flood, 2002 Krymsk, 2012

3.1. EXPOSURE AND VULNERABILITY INDEX

COASTAL MUNICIPALITIES OF KRASNODAR REGION

11 Krymsk wasn’t the most exposed but one of vulnerable!

3.2. MUNICIPAL RISK INDEX

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Slavyansk municipal district

But is it really the proportion of vulnerable people?

Can we recommend EMERCOM to strengthen

activities in the area?

4.1. VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT

Poll. Positive answers to sensitive questions

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There are a lot of questions to EMERCOM

But there are questions to some people

4.2. VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT

Main questions after factor analysis

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Vulnerability index of Slavyansk district by previous

method is 0.42.

41.5% of the total population in Slavyansk district can be

attributed to the group of the most vulnerable

Most

vulnerable

Less

vulnerable

Weakly

vulnerable

Can you provide the

safety of your life? No

In part. Do

not know Yes

What is your age? 0-16, > 66 56-65 > 16, < 56

How many years do

you live in the area? < 1, 1-5 5-20 > 20

Did you experience

flooding? No Once

More than

once

5.1. SOCIAL LOSES

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• DSocial – potential social loses • L – approach of estimation • ρ – population density of a settlement i (person per km2) • S – exposed (flood prone) area of settlement i (km2) • V(6) – social vulnerability index (percentage of population ) • VVictims – share of potential casualties (EMERCOM 2007) • coeffVictims – average health losses: L1 – health insurance (€ 5000 per

capita, Guriev 2010), L2 – free medical insurance (€ 1200 per capita) • VDeath – death rate (EMERCOM 2007) • coeffDeath – financial estimation of a statistical life loss value: L1 – life

insurances in the USA, adjusted for GDP difference between the USA and Russia (€1.5m per life lost (Guriev 2010)); L2 – the loss of a family member (€ 50000 per life lost (EMERCOM 2007))

ji

LDeath

ijDeath

ijiji

ji

LVictims

ijVictims

ijijiLSocial

coeffVVS

coeffVVSD

,

)6(

,

)6(

Two main approaches for financial evaluation of human life cost

Real loss (L1 ): how person

and society estimate it –

health and life insurance

Government (L2 ): what they pay if someone injured or dies

Statistical life cost (Mrozek & Taylor 2002; Viscusi & Aldy 2003)

5.2. ECONOMIC DAMAGE

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investmentPlannedinvestmentExistestateal

tureInfrastrucassetsFixedeAgricultur

Economic

DDD

DDDD

___Re

_

ji

ijiji

Economic SVdD,

• DEconomic – potential economic damage

• d – maximum potential value of exposed object i per unit of area (million

€ per km2)

• V – vulnerability index of object i (in shares)

• S – size of area, covered by i (km2)

• DAgriculture – agricultural damage

• DFixed_assets – loss of fixed assets

• DInfrastructure – infrastructure damage

• DReal_estate – damage of dwellings in residential section

• DExist_investment – loss of existing investment activity, or underinvestment

• DPlanned_investment – potential profit loss of planned investment projects

5.3. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DAMAGE

Slavyansk municipal district

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Potential economic damage

Medium flooding

Category Agriculture Fixed

assets Infrastructure

Real

estate

Invest

ments Total

Potential damage (€ million) 1.1 20 12.2 29.1 0.8 63.2

Catastrophic flooding

Category Agriculture Fixed

assets Infrastructure

Real

estate

Invest

ments Total

Potential damage (€ million) 32.3 75.7 13.9 150.1 42.1 314.1

Potential social losses Medium flooding

Approach Real loss for society (€ million) Government estimation (€ million)

Category Victims Deaths Total Victims Deaths Total

Total 0.7 10.5 11.2 0.17 0.35 0.52

Catastrophic flooding

Approach Real loss for society (€ million) Government estimation (€ million)

Category Victims Deaths Total Victims Deaths Total

Total 8.8 264.0 272.8 2.1 8.8 10.9

Potential economic damage and social losses can be similar!

CONCLUSION

Answering the research questions

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• It is possible to use international methods but there is a lack of

data on regional and municipal levels in Russia and different

methods for data collection

• Russian regions are very different by its exposure and vulnerability

but it is even more different on municipal level

• Regional indices is a form of monitoring

• In Krasnodar region, there are some areas even more exposed

and vulnerable than Krymsk municipal district

• Indices can be verified by polls

• Poll results from Slavyansk district: a lot of questions to local

government and EMERCOM

• Social loss is comparable to economic damage

• Need for change of EMERCOM and scientific paradigm in natural

hazards research from technocratic (when we try to ‘concrete’ all

the problems) to social (preparation of local societies)

Thank you for attention!

Stepan Zemtsov,

RANEPA, MSU, IEP

PhD/senior researcher

E-mail: zemtsov@ranepa.ru

URL: http://www.ranepa.ru/prepodavateli/sotrudnik/?742

Laboratory of complex ecological and geographical research in the

Arctic, Lomonosov Moscow State University

For citation: Zemtsov S., Goryachko M., Baburin V., Krylenko I., Yumina N. (2016). Integrated assessment of socio-economic risks of hazardous hydrological phenomena in Slavyansk municipal district. Natural Hazards, no 1, 43-61. Zemtsov S.P., Baburin V.L., Koltermann K.P., Krylenko I.N., Yumina N.M., Litvinov V.Yu (2014). Social risk and vulnerability assessment of the hazardous hydrological phenomena in Russia. GEOGRAPHY, ENVIRONMENT, SUSTAINABILITY, no 4, 95-118. Zemtsov S., Krylenko I., Yumina N. (2012). Socio-economic Assessment of Flood Risk in Coastal Areas of the Azov-Black Sea Coast in the Krasnodar Region (in Russian: Социально-экономическая оценка риска наводнений в прибрежных зонах Азово-Черноморского побережья Краснодарского края). In The Environmental and social risks in the coastal zone of the Black Sea and Azov Sea. Moscow: Publishing House of Triumph