Multi-hazard susceptibility assessment for land use planning in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The Lisbon Metropolitan Area is a risk hotspot in Portugal due to excessive exposure to natural and environmental hazards. In this work, a multi-hazard susceptibility assessment is performed for the 118 parishes that constitute the study area, considering the spatial incidence of seven hazardous processes: earthquakes, tsunami, beach erosion and coastal flooding, coastal erosion and cliff retreat, landslides, floods, and forest fires. The relative importance of hazardous processes was established through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), based on the frequency-magnitude relationship of each process and its damage capacity. All the parishes exhibiting very high multi-hazard susceptibility have high earthquake susceptibility and most are located in riverine or coastal zones, thus subjected to floods and/or coastal erosion (affecting beaches and/or cliffs).