GIS-based assessment of population and dwelling exposure to landslide-prone areas in the Valencian Community (Spain)

The spatial identification of population exposure to landslide-prone areas is essential for risk-informed territorial planning, particularly where impacts affect peri-urban and dispersed residential areas rather than consolidated urban centres. This study presents a GIS-based, multi-scale methodology to quantify and locate population and dwelling exposure beyond administrative boundaries by integrating landslide susceptibility mapping, residential cadastral data, and high-resolution population information from the 2021 census grid. Exposure is assessed by combining residential cadastral parcels with high- and very-high-susceptibility zones and aggregating exposed parcels into Residential Clusters at Risk (RCr). Exposure values are classified using Tail Quantiles Breaks (TQB) based on the P50, P70, P85, and P95 percentiles, providing a classification scheme well suited to heavy-tailed population distributions. Application to the Valencian Community (Spain) shows that population exposure is low at the regional scale (approximately 0.25% of the total population) but spatially uneven. Inland areas exhibit higher exposure intensity associated with permanent residential settlements, whereas coastal tourist-oriented areas concentrate higher absolute exposure linked to extensive built-up areas. Sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of the methodology across aggregation radii and classification thresholds. The proposed methodology supports territorial planning and preventive interventions but represents an exposure assessment rather than a complete landslide risk analysis.