Legislation - territorial and urban planning.
The objective of this discipline is to carry out a comparative study of the existing regulations for prevention and mitigation of natural risks and to analyze the use of hazard maps in territorial and urban planning.
In the absence of specific regulations, references to natural hazards are generally found to be dispersed in numerous sectoral regulations. In most countries, civil protection legislation and the strategic evaluation of plans and programs, through urban planning legislation, makes it possible to mitigate the damage caused by natural hazards such as floods, earthquakes or volcanoes. However, the absence of hazard and risk maps in planning documents prevents prevention or mitigation of said risks in territorial and urban planning.
Legislation and urban planning are the most effective and efficient tools in prevention and mitigation of natural risks. However, despite the relationship between them being evident, non-compliance with regulations prevents identification of areas exposed to natural risks in planning and therefore their prevention.
