Integrated vulnerability assessment: the relevance “to” and “of” regional and urban planning

The paper focuses on three main questions: - How relevant is multi-risk assessment to Regional and urban planning? - Why spatial planning is relevant to the vulnerability assessment? - Why to work out integrated vulnerability maps? With respect to the first question and focusing on the Italian context, the paper highlights that during the last decade, together with the spreading of the sustainability concept, urban and regional planning has been more and more focused on the recovery, reorganization and requalification of existing settlements. Through the analysis of some case studies, the paper underlines that just in few cases it is possible to cope with hazards factors, while in many cases Regional and Urban Planning have provided a relevant contribution to the improvement of the safeguard of existing settlements through actions aimed at reducing their exposure and/or vulnerability. With respect to the second question the paper, starting from the idea that a settlement is a complex system and basing on the analysis of case-studies, suggests an interpretation of the concept of vulnerability highlighting its “systemic” and “dynamic” dimension and the consequent role of Regional and Urban Planning in vulnerability assessment and mitigation. Finally, with reference to the systemic approach applied to the city and its environment, the paper provides suggestions aimed at highlighting why integrated vulnerability maps have to be worked out with reference to the connections among hazards and the interactions among the exposed elements.