Residential Vulnerability of Barcelona: Methodology Integrating Multi-Criteria Evaluation Systems and Geographic Information Systems

Abstract

This article presents the methodology and results of a pioneering investigation in the determination and mapping of socio-residential vulnerability in the city of Barcelona according to a multi-criteria synthetic analysis. The methodology followed is based on a system of indicators elaborated from the exploitation of habitual statistical Open Data complemented with specific unprecedented data elaborated and supplied by the Barcelona City Council. The analysis is based on secondary data and it is structured in georeferenced axes, components, and indicators, which allow determination of the sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and urban and residential space characteristics at neighborhood, population census unit, and urban block level. The objective of the research was to detect, determine, and establish a measure of differentiation relative to the degree of residential vulnerability of some neighborhoods with respect to others, in order to seek prioritization measures for action in the most vulnerable areas. The results of the research provide a series of maps that allow us to define the areas where the highest levels of vulnerability indicators coincide according to a synthetic multi-criteria analysis.

Decision-Making Tool for the Selection of Priority Areas for Building Rehabilitation in Barcelona

“…Most scientific studies that have successfully provided tools for the selection of priority areas have a top-down approach, based on the analysis of very complex secondary data sources and the detection of areas of high vulnerability. Many cities and metropolitan areas have developed similar approaches in the context of designing rehabilitation area-based policies such as London [19,20], Madrid [21][22][23] and Barcelona, [24] among others. In the local context, many such studies are working on the incorporation of mixed methodologies that aim to integrate qualitative information [25,26] and primary data obtained through complex fieldwork [27,28].…”

“…The City of Barcelona is also increasingly seeking to fundament its public policies on well-informed scientific sources and has recently undertaken high-scale scientific studies that have already helped to inform public policies and rehabilitation programs. One of them is an example of a highly complex database analysis that helped the selection of priority neighborhoods in which the Neighborhood Plan is being implemented [24]. The other, is an example of the selection of very specific and disaggregated information at the building scale [29] that aimed at offering a first prioritization of buildings in which to implement the Program for High-Complexity Buildings [31,32].…”

“…This research purposes what the authors believe is a poorly explored intermediate step between the design of public rehabilitation policies and their implementation through rehabilitation programs, based on the information provided by several research studies applied to the City of Barcelona [24,29]. The selection of disaggregated quantitative and qualitative information that can extensively describe the need for rehabilitation of the building stock, obtained both from very extensive fieldwork along with data mining techniques with secondary databases, enables for a bottom-up approach to the delimitation of priority areas that can be complementary to the first large-scale data analysis results.…”

“…The first main data source and starting point of this research is the study for the detection of vulnerable areas in the City of Barcelona that provided its vulnerability map (Figure 1, left map) [24], which was carried out with a highly complex database analysis on the available 20 data sources of public secondary data (cadaster, census, construction work licenses, etc.) including socioeconomic, sociodemographic socio-urban and residential aspects with different levels of disaggregation (from individual buildings to neighborhood).…”

“…In those neighborhoods exhaustive studies were made on the state of the conservation of residential buildings [29]. These consisted of a pre-diagnosis of the state of conservation of the buildings carried out from the outside and establishing five indexes corresponding to the priority level of need for rehabilitation of each building: Vulnerability map (left) [24] and map of Barcelona where studied neighborhoods are highlighted (right). See Table 1 for the numbered list of neighborhoods.…”