Susceptibility

Synonyms

Lack of resistance; Hazardousness of place; Spatial hazard

Definition

Susceptibility means “the state of being susceptible” or “easily affected.” In natural hazards terms, susceptibility is related to spatial aspects of the hazard. It refers to the tendency of an area to undergo the effects of a certain hazardous process (e.g., floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, subsidence, etc.) without taking into account either the moment of occurrence or potential victims and economic losses.

Discussion

Susceptibility linked to slope instabilities, for instance, indicates the tendency of an area to breakdown. According to Brabb (1984), susceptibility is the probability of an event happening in a specific zone, depending on the correlation of the instability-determining factors with the distribution of the past movements.

By applying different methods, including heuristic, probabilistic, nearest neighbor distance, matrix, or density methods among others, it is possible to draw up susceptibility...