Housing Construction as a Factor in the Increase in Vulnerability of the Population of Large Cities to Natural and Technogenic Hazards

The aim of this study is to assess the degree of influence of commissioning of new large housing complexes on the main parameter of the Moscow population’s spatial vulnerability to natural and technogenic hazards: population density. The study represents a first attempt in Russian geography of natural and technogenic risk to link three types of data: housing construction, potential natural and technogenic threats, and dynamics of the actual population of intracity space. During the study, key housing commissioning indicators for Moscow for 2011–2021 were analyzed. Big Data (mobile operators’ data) made it possible to determine the actual change in population density for 2018–2019 on the largest possible scale, in 500 × 500 m cells. Indicators of the actual population density were compared based on mobile operators’ data on weekday winter nights in 2018 and 2019 with housing stock growth indicators for the interim period. The established dependence of these indicators can be used in the future to predict intracity population dynamics in studies of natural and technogenic risks, when longer time series of mobile operators’ data become available for Moscow. The study also examines factors that increase natural and technogenic hazards in Moscow areas related to housing construction. It was found that due to the limited availability of land resources for new construction on the territory of Old Moscow, most housing complexes are localized in areas of increased engineering-geological and technogenic hazard. Additional factors increasing risk are an increase in the number of stories and building density. They are characterized by a stable positive trend over the given period.