Na-Tech Risk: a New Challenge for Local Planners

The adaptation to climate change in terms of national legislative actions, compensation mechanisms, sectorial risk guidelines is slowly proceeding among EU member states; in this context, local land-use planners lack of adequate tools to properly face Climate-related events. In particular, as far as it concerns NaTech risk, the effective implementation of dedicated measures at local level is difficult to reach; also, the methodologies elaborated till now rarely focused on the management of NaTech risk from the point of view of local urban and land-use planners and managers. An easy-to-use NaTech indicator is here proposed, aiming at providing Local administrations with a survey of the industries exposed to NaTech risk on their territory, and to signal possible critical situations to be managed. The first step for the development of the indicator consists of a questionnaire aimed at identifying potential vulnerable items and hazardous substances detained; then, both items and substances are rated to obtain a classification of potential NaTech vulnerability. NaTech indicator could be useful to increase the awareness and preparedness of public administrator and planners towards the increasing probability and impact of Na-Tech events; it has the advantage to be easy to use for not expert users and can guide the decision-makers in identifying the most vulnerable Na-tech areas in their territory. The NaTech indicator can be integrated with further in-depth studies, including i.e. the Integrated Quantitative risk-assessment.