The purpose of the report is to estimate the influence of hazardous hydrological phenomena on society. Methods and results of social vulnerability and risk assessment are presented in the article. The field research was conducted in the Slavyansk municipal district in the Krasnodar region. The main result of the work is that social risk can be underestimated in comparison with economic risk because of a low “value of life” in Russia (no life insurance, neglecting of basic safety rules, etc.).

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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?

4. 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. 5
Exposure
Vulnerability High exposure but low vulnerability
(World Risk Index, 2016)

6. 1.3. WORLD RISK INDEX
6But 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%

7. 2.1. REGIONAL AND MUNICIPAL RISK INDEX
(Zemtsov et al., 2014, 2016)
7
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)

8. 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

9. 2.3. REGIONAL VULNERABILITY INDEX
The most risky are underdeveloped regions?
9
Is it the case on municipal level? 2010
2014

10. 2.4. REGIONAL RISK INDEX
Relative potential social losses
10
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

11. 3.1. EXPOSURE AND VULNERABILITY INDEX
COASTAL MUNICIPALITIES OF KRASNODAR REGION
11Krymsk wasn’t the most exposed but one of vulnerable!

12. 3.2. MUNICIPAL RISK INDEX
12
Slavyansk municipal district
But is it really the proportion of vulnerable people?
Can we recommend EMERCOM to strengthen
activities in the area?

13. 4.1. VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT
Poll. Positive answers to sensitive questions
13
There are a lot of questions to EMERCOM
But there are questions to some people

14. 4.2. VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT
Main questions after factor analysis
14
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

15. 5.1. SOCIAL LOSES
15
• 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
L
Death
ij
Death
ijiji
ji
L
Victims
ij
Victims
ijijiL
Social
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)

16. 5.2. ECONOMIC DAMAGE
16
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

17. 5.3. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DAMAGE
Slavyansk municipal district
17
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!

18. CONCLUSION
Answering the research questions
18
• 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)

19. 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