Science advice for enhanced spatial planning in volcanic regions
Scira Menoni
Affiliations: Deapartment of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Presentation type: Poster
Presentation time: Monday 16:30 - 18:30, Room Poster Hall
Poster Board Number: 106
Programme No: 7.2.18
Abstract
This contribution builds on an experience held within the Scientific Advice Mechanism of the European Commission elaborating a Scientific Opinion (SO) to inform European policies on Strategic Crisis Management. The SO tackles also the issue of how to provide scientific advice not only during a crisis but along the entire timescale, from anticipation to response and recovery. It encourages a long term view even when dealing with impeding threats complementing resilience and disaster risk management. This contribution addresses science advice for spatial planning, both as a preventative non-structural mitigation measure and for recovery and reconstruction. Literature on the topic is rather scant for several reasons including the objective difficulties in reducing exposure and vulnerabilities in densely populated cities and the lack of competence of planners. One important reason lies in the scale and type of provided science advice frameworks. Advice should be given both at national/regional and local scale. At the former to inform legislation on urban and land use planning and on strategic environmental impact assessment to embed volcanic hazards' avoidance as a key concern. At the local level, scientific advice bodies must include diverse disciplinary backgrounds, not only to inform about volcanic hazards, but help in visualizing the implication of estimated impacts and probabilities on urban functions and assets to be located or relocated. Required expertise should also cover how to carry out participatory approaches convincingly embedding scientific knowledge on volcanic risk, and how to stress test spatial plans for resilience, as some communities have started to do.