In the 2021 Annual Conference of the Urban Planning Society of China (UPSC), Professor Ma Donghui, who is the chairman of the UPSC Safety and Hazard Prevention Planning Division and a researcher at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning in Beijing University of Technology, shared his few thoughts about disaster risk reduction and resilience from the perspective of the Chinese territorial and spatial planning.

In the presentation, the challenges of disaster risk reduction at the scale of territorial and spatial planning were outlined, and some advice was then proposed for promoting the effectiveness of territorial and spatial planning in terms of disaster prevention and resilience.

The agenda of disaster risk reduction in China is, at present, confronted with three aspects of challenges.

First of all, China has been facing diverse types of hazards in the vast territory, and the great frequencies of hazards often lead to devastating disasters and losses. Whereas the capability of disaster risk reduction of China currently ranks moderate globally and the recorded figures of mean mortality per impacted area have been rising over the past two decades. Thus, mitigating the risk faced by the exposed objects to hazards is one of the most essential solutions to reduce disaster risk in China, and planning plays a key role in this agenda.

Secondly, improvements are urgently carried out to fill the technical gaps in disaster management by coordinating engineering and spatial approaches.Engineering methods are mainly facilitated to cope with the predictable hazards, on the other hand, spatial planning will dominantly focus on the prevention of catastrophic hazards which are unable to be foreseen, in the wake of hard engineering being found to be less capable of dealing with the great uncertainties of disasters. Developing spatial disaster prevention and systematic resilience would be complementary strategies to mitigate disasters. Being necessary to reduce the uncertainties of hazards, spatial approaches clarify different requirements of prevention, patterns and infrastructures, accordingly, the design of disaster prevention could then be conducted spatially. However, the prevention standards and requirements for hard engineering remain unclear in the current territorial and spatial planning, and the spatial design of hazard scenarios has yet to receive attention. In addition, there is insufficient understanding of the significant role of planning in disaster risk reduction, for instance, the reduction of mortality and economic loss, the spatial plans and management of economy, populations and capacity as well as the scales of adaptive and preventive space.

Thirdly, preventive methods are now inconsistent among different sectors in territorial and spatial planning. A systematic disaster risk reduction strategy is thought to be necessary. Multi-tier preventive goals drawn on the ground of the magnitude of disasters are suggested to be vital, clear mechanisms should also be developed to systematically evaluate, supervise and mediate urban and rural plans, construction, management and disaster risk reduction.

In order to achieve urban safety, sustainability and resilience, it is suggested to create a holistic and multi-layer life cycle management system according to different hazardous circumstances.

Suggestions were proposed to cope with the issues of disaster risk reduction and resilience at the level of territorial and spatial planning. In the light of the frequency and degree of disasters in China, preventive strategies should be people-centric by considering the diverse demands of different groups. To do this, systematic mechanisms of disaster risk reduction should be created and managed at the territorial and spatial planning scale, in order to mediate the effective collaboration among different sectors and stakeholders. Meanwhile, robustness, flexibility and resilience were noted to be three defence lines to reduce disasters.

Specifically, the first line (i.e. robustness) ensures the basic capability of physical urban space to protect cities from hazards; the spatial preventive system will be the second defence tier of cities by establishing the consistency of disaster risk reduction in the territorial and spatial planning;and as the final layer of the defence lines, constructing resilience would enhance the capacity of cities to combat with emergencies and maintain the urban functions in post-hazard stages.

It is also advised to build up a territorial and spatial disaster prevention system based on the elements of disaster risk reduction (e.g. exposed areas, sources of hazards, spaces for emergency). Moreover, the assessment of disaster risk was indicated to be essential and it required more in-depth research and justification in the practice. And the assessment should be linked with elements of territorial and spatial planning and corresponds to different hazard scenarios. On top of that, it is important to holistically understand the disaster risk and establish a systematic disaster preventive system which brings different actors and tiers of strategies together.

Tag: Urban Planning Society of China, Expert’s Opinion

Source: http://en.planning.org.cn/upsc/books/view?id=9960