Gestire l'imprevedibile. La pianificazione alla prova dei fatti emergenziali

In recent years, risks have spread systemically in cities and territories around the world as evidenced by the increasingly frequency of natural disasters and more recently by the Covid-19 pandemic. This has led both to a global increase in risks, due to the higher frequency and intensity of natural and man-made disasters exacerbated by the negative impacts of climate change, and to an increase in vulnerability and exposure of communities to hazards due to unprecedented urbanization rate. As a result, we are no longer confronted with isolated emergency events, which may occasionally occur and for which we can get prepared to respond; rather, due to the rapid succession of disasters of different natures and mutually amplifying, it is necessary to learn how to cope with a state of pervasive uncertainties and radical changes. These dynamics challenge planners to find new approaches to deal with risks in a broader perspective, in order to find adaptive strategies and reduce the need of emergency actions. This chapter focuses on planning approaches for risks management, which have been elaborated through several research experiences, carried out by the research team on Urban and Regional Planning of the Polytechnic University of Bari, in relation to several types of hazards, from coastal erosion to evacuation from road tunnels, from the spread of infections and health diseases, including the Covid-19 pandemic, to flooding phenomena. These have been developed at the intersection of two research streams: the first one dealing with risk perception analysis and the second one with behavior modeling for the management of multiple risk situations. Nurtured by these reflections, this chapter highlights the importance of human factors in risk management strategies, and proposes two complementary approaches to encompass a broader understanding of their influence on planning strategies, respectively focused on the analysis of human perception and of human behavior in risk situations.