Social Vulnerability as a Component of Landslide Risk in Quito, Ecuador

This article examines social vulnerability (SV) as a necessary component of landslide risk assessment in the urban area of Quito, Ecuador. Landslide susceptibility identifies where slope instability is more likely, but it does not explain which populations have fewer resources to anticipate, cope with, or recover from such events. Using 2010 census-tract data, principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to derive interpretable factors of SV. The most robust factor—structural socioeconomic precariousness—combines precarious occupational conditions, lack of access to social security or private insurance, and limited access to new technologies. This factor was combined with a previously developed landslide susceptibility map (LSM) based on events recorded between 2005 and 2017 and aggregated to census tracts. The Comparative Environmental Risk Index (CERI) was then used to interpret whether socially vulnerable groups are disproportionately located in areas of higher landslide susceptibility. Results reveal a comparatively safer and socially advantaged populations axis from the center-north toward the eastern valleys, while high-risk and socially vulnerable areas concentrate in the south and selected peripheral zones. The study provides a historical and methodological baseline and contributes a quantitative, spatial, urban approach to landslide risk inequity in an Andean city.