The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Research Project: Precautionary Risk Management in Regional Planning – Consolidation

Project briefing

  • Status Completed
  • Project duration July 2016 – May 2020
  • Programme MORO

In this project, the risk management approach previously developed with the Cologne region was further developed and consolidated to ensure transferability to other types of regions. In two model regions, additional hazards and risks were addressed and a broader institutional and legal spectrum of regional planning authorities was included. The result is an action guide for approaching risk management in regional planning.

Background

Spatially significant risks affect almost all areas of social life. They are increasing in times of climate change, especially in conurbations with high population densities. In particular, the protection of critical infrastructures is gaining importance in society and spatial planning.

Since local land-use as well as state and regional planning can make an important contribution in this area, the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) initiated a MORO project to deal in depth with precautionary risk management in regional planning and to demonstrate the possibilities of its implementation in practice.

The aim of precautionary risk management is to identify hazards and vulnerabilities and to assess spatially significant risks. Within the meaning of Section 1 para. 1 and Section 8 para. 6 of the Federal Regional Planning Act (ROG), these are risks that require a supra-local and supra-disciplinary consideration due to their widespread spatial impacts.

Options for action arise for regional planning whenever the probability of occurrence (hazard due to frequency and magnitude) or the consequences of an event (extent of damage, depending on the sensitivity of the protected assets) can be influenced with the help of regional planning instruments. In this way, both the intensity of hazards and their impact on protected assets move into the focus of regional planning. By overlaying hazards with sensitive spatial functions and uses, spatially relevant risks can be identified and considered in regional planning.

So far, risk perception and management in Germany has been dominated by a sectoral perspective that primarily aims to avert individual hazards. Vulnerability as an essential component is only being considered at a rudimentary level. A spatial multi-hazard or multi-risk approach is rarely adopted. However, the manifold interactions and cumulative effects involved make this a necessity.

Precautionary risk management should therefore be developed across different sectors and levels and be embedded in a strategic and dynamic approach to integrated spatial development. A risk governance concept can help to explore options for action in the context of complex constellations of interactions. These can include various cause-and-effect relationships and multi-level systems of technical and political competences. With the help of several actors, a risk governance concept can also aid the shaping and implementation of specific planning proposals.

Objective

Against this background, the project served to strengthen spatial risk prevention in regional planning through a systematic analysis of spatially relevant types of hazards and the testing of methodological approaches to risk identification.

The project focused on:

  • the assessment of the spatial significance of different types of hazards,
  • the operationalisation of hazard intensities and sensitivities of the protected assetgoods,
  • the creation of regional risk profiles,
  • the testing of multi-hazard and multi-risk representations,
  • the design of regional planning instruments to take account of the objectives of precautionary risk management,
  • the management of precautionary risk management in relationship with criticalto critical infrastructures,
  • the systematic consideration of risk concerns in the consideration process,
  • the systematic participation of relevant actors,
  • the role of regional planning in the context of comprehensive risk governance,
  • the shaping of risk communication at the level of regional planning.

The MORO "Precautionary Risk Management in Regional Planning" started in 2013 with a first phase that was completed in 2015. The aim of this first phase was to operationalise the risk management approach for regional planning using the example of one planning region, (the Cologne administrative district), and to prepare the results as recommendations for other planning regions in addition to as well as for specifying the need for further research and testing.

For this purpose, the research participants presented a concept for the analysis, and evaluation as well as for the and managementing of risks in spatial planning. and tested.

They tested the approaches at the regional level in close cooperation with the responsible actors of the Cologne district government . The results of the first phase were published in a report edited by the research participants (agl/prc 2015).

In the second phase, the focus was on two other model regions – Regional Planning Area I in Schleswig-Holstein and the Stuttgart Region. The two regions also covered a broader institutional spectrum of regional planning and legal forms as well as spatially significant risks.

They further developed the approach to risk management in regional planning developed in the first phase under different framework conditions. The basic approach developed and the results from the Cologne Administrative District model region were presented in a joint kick-off workshop.

An intensive exchange took place in regional workshops in the two model regions. The final reports of the model regions were the basis for the cross-sectional evaluation of the research participants.


Contractors of the research project were agl | Hartz - Saad - Wendl, Saarbrücken, plan + risk consult, Dortmund.

Contact us

  • Thomas Pütz
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division RS 5 "Digital Cities, Risk Prevention and Transportation"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-2300
    Fax: +49 228 99401-2356
    Email: thomas.puetz@bbr.bund.de

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