Prioritizing neighborhoods for intervention to mitigate urban small disasters triggered by rainfall

Flood hazard maps display areas inundated by water bodies after extreme rainfall events occur, helping governments focus on performing protection works there. However, rainfall also causes small disasters at other moments, which are not included in these maps, such as traffic impedance and water-borne diseases, both inside and outside the mapped floodplain. Their mitigation would help build resilience and reduce inequality. Unfortunately, small disasters are overlooked in traditional risk management for being tolerable, mild, and scattered. Though they do occur with high frequency, it is challenging to get data sources to describe them accurately. Therefore, efforts must be made to base analyses on available on-site reports. The objectives of this paper are to relate small disasters to rainfall parameters and neighborhood attributes, and to prioritize neighborhoods for intervention in Cali, Colombia. Contributions provided here are useful to prioritize areas in other cities, and to follow better data gathering practices.