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.