A procedure for the resilience mapping in urban systems exposed to natural hazard: The Ischia Island (southern Italy) test area

Abstract

A procedure to operationalize the environmental component of urban resilience in areas increasingly exposed to hazardous events, often intensified by climate changes, is here proposed. The procedure was implemented in a Geographic Information System framework named “Resilience and Disaster Risk Management” that manages spatial and non-spatial data through the implementation of workflows aimed at streamlining and standardizing all the steps. Indices and indicators are used to semi-quantitatively assess the environmental driver that, along with economic, social and institutional component, governs the direction of the urban system. The indicators/indices were here investigated and mapped at the census district scale. The procedure was tested at Ischia Island (Southern Italy) exposed to volcanic, seismic, landslide, flood and coastal erosion hazards. The spatial variability of environmental resilience is shown into 13 maps that discretize the island into high, medium and low resilience classes. They resulted valid tools to prepare the urban system to possible future hazardous events during the mitigation phase of disaster-risk management (long term) but also to illustrate the capacity of a system to respond/withstand and react in the response and recovery phases (short term). The mapping procedure can be applied to larger areas at risk keeping the censual districts as the minimum territorial reference units or using municipal, regional or national administrative units. The expected integration of resilience assessment in territorial planning (e.g. Regional Territorial Plan, Provincial Territorial Plan, and Municipality Territorial Plan) could greatly benefit from the outcomes of the present research for overcoming sectoral approaches in territorial management.