The need for municipal action planning against flood risk: the risk-informed journey of the municipality of Oliva (Spain)

[EN] Society demands higher safety levels, including those actions related to urban planning and protection against natural hazards and manmade threats. Therefore, authorities respond to these demands through new regulatory and operational frameworks to cope with existing and future risks. The Spanish regulatory framework regarding flood risk management, based on the European context, defines the required procedures for emergency management, involving all authorities responsable for civil protection and urban planning. This framework requires all municipalities at medium or high flood risk to develop and implement local action plans against flood risk (PAMRI, by its acronym in Spanish), which must include a risk estimation, analysis and evaluation, along with the description of actions for a risk-informed urban planning and emergency management. The City Council of Oliva developed the corresponding plan, approved by the regional government in June 2016, including new aspects such as the figure of the Technical Director, and a comprehensive and quantitative flood risk analysis to support decisionmaking on emergency management and planning. Research activities related to the work described in this article are part of the INICIA project, “Metodología de evaluación de INversiones en Infraestructuras del Ciclo Integral del Agua basada en indicadores de riesgo y de eficiencia energética”, within the framework of the National Programme for Research Aimed at the Challenges of Society “Retos 2013”, with reference BIA2013-48157-C2-1-R-AR. Porta-Sancho, JR.; Castillo Rodríguez, JT.; Escuder Bueno, I.; Perales-Momparler, S. (2016). The need for municipal action planning against flood risk: the risk-informed journey of the municipality of Oliva (Spain). VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. 1(2):67-78. https://doi.org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2016.6849