TOWARDS MAPPING MULTI-HAZARD VULNERABILITY OF NATURAL DISASTERS FOR THE BULGARIAN TERRITORY

Multi-hazard, multi-sectoral and multi-level mapping of natural disasters contributing to the risk assessment is one of the high-priority areas for the international cartographic community. Natural disasters do not affect evenly the territory of Bulgaria and some of them have a trans-boundary impact. Different natural threats to the Bulgarian territory are separately mapped and various specialized thematic maps are available. In this paper an approach for mapping the multi-hazard vulnerability at national scale is outlined. This effort for vulnerability mapping is binded with freely available demographic and social information, industry, business and communications assets and building stock statistics. Vulnerability maps indicate the location of sites where people, the natural environment or property are at risk due to a potentially catastrophic event that could result in death, injury, pollution or other destruction. Being at early stage of development, this elaboration demonstrates a set of sequential methodological steps towards preparing vulnerability maps that can be used in all phases of disaster management.