PER UN’ECOLOGIA POLITICA DELLA VULNERABILITÀ URBANA: IL CASO DI FUNCHAL-MADEIRA

Madeira island, in the Atlantic Ocean, is frequently interested by natural hazards. This is due not only to its position and geomorphological characteristics but also to poorly planned settlements. This is more evident in the south coast, whose geo-physical characteristics have facilitated the human settlement and the urbanization of the area. However human activities and urban planning have not considered the geomorphology and the physical dynamics. This has favoured the urban sprawling along all the coast and especially in Funchal, the main city. Every year natural hazards of different nature threaten Funchal. The neighbourhoods more hitten are those located at the “margins” of the city. Accordingly, this work has investigated the urban vulnerability in the marginal spaces of the city of Funchal. With marginal spaces this paper means those places at the borders of the city in a topological (between nature and the city) and social (emargination of the poor, minorities, ecc.) dimension. According with the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) approach, the authors have tried to understand the interaction between urbanization and marginal urban spaces and its implication in disaster risk production. Moreover we have investigated if the urban sprawl has consequences in vulnerability distribution. Therefore, adopting a social analysis, the multiple relations between environment, culture, policy and power and their temporal evolutions were studied. The research started with a historical analysis and produced maps of hazards distribution (floods and forest fires). Then, data of Census 2011 were used to evaluate the socio-economic marginality. Final considerations are presented and discussed.