Land Use Planning, Sustainability and Disaster Risk Reduction

Dear Colleagues,

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies should prevent new and reduce existing risks, thus ensuring effective risk management. The Sendai framework, in line with the other 2030 Agenda-related agreements (e.g., the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the New Urban Agenda), defines four priorities: 1) understanding disaster risk; 2) strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; 3) investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and 4) enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “build back better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.

In this sense, land use planning can play a decisive role. Well-designed and -implemented spatial planning promotes more resilient and sustainable landscapes and communities. This can be achieved by: 1) identifying hazard-prone areas, exposed populations and highly vulnerable groups, as well as exposed structures and infrastructures; 2) encouraging sustainable practices, including in the socio-economic sphere; 3) creating early warning systems and evacuation plans; 4) increasing risk awareness and preparedness; 5) stablishing effective coordination between national/regional/local governments and stakeholders; and 6) promoting public participation and the involvement of populations in decision making.

The frequency, extent and magnitude of extreme events (e.g., flooding, droughts, wildfires) are expected to increase as a result of climate change, threatening more vulnerable and less resilient societies and populations. In this context, the European Commission recently defined five common goals to enhance disaster resilience: anticipate, prepare, alert, respond and secure. Therefore, governments, civil society and individuals should promote and implement mitigation and adaptation actions to decrease hazards, exposure and vulnerability, increasing resilience and reducing damage.

The main goal of this Special Issue is to strengthen and deepen the knowledge on the interconnections and relationships between land use planning, disaster risk reduction, ecological and socio-economic resilience, and climate change. Studies in all scientific areas and subjects related to these main topics are welcome in this Special Issue, in line with the interdisciplinarity of the Land journal.

The studies included in this Special Issue (original research articles and review papers) are expected to address the following themes:

• Assessment of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and risk to a given or combined natural hazards from environmental, social and/or economic perspectives;
• Effects and contributions of national/regional/local land use planning and risk management to decrease the frequency, magnitude and damage of natural hazards;
• Methods to improve the resilience of urban or rural exposed populations;
• Natural risk management links to environmental and social sustainability;
• Consequences and threats of climate change (e.g., extreme events, health problems, poverty, displacements), and mitigation and adaptation actions.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Miguel Leal
Dr. Paulo Miguel Madeira
Dr. Raquel de Melo
Dr. Sérgio Cruz de Oliveira
Guest Editors

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• land use planning
• disaster risk reduction (DRR)
• natural hazards
• sustainability
• climate change
• resilience
• risk assessment
• risk management