"In recent years much progress has been made in researching a wide variety of extreme events on S. Miguel. In addition there are a number of volcano-related risks which impact upon the people of S. Miguel. Some of these may occur both before and during volcanic emergencies (e.g. earthquakes), whilst others render S. Miguel dangerous even when its volcanoes are not erupting (e.g. flooding, landslides, tsunamis and health impacts, especially the effects of CO2 seepage into dwellings). In this chapter we first define what vulnerability means to the people of São Miguel, and relate this to the cultural and economic characteristics of the island. The following aspects of vulnerability are discussed: a. physical (i.e. housing, settlement and the characteristics of evacuation routes and plans); b. demographic and economic;
c. social and cultural and perceptual (i.e. do people have an accurate cognition of risk). Particular areas of concern relate to housing; the identification of isolated dwellings which would be difficult to evacuate; the vulnerability/resilience of evacuation routes following recent infrastructure improvements; characteristics of the island's transient population; management of livestock under emergency conditions; local leadership roles and educational outreach.
