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A. Schindelegger, A. Kanonier:
"Natural Hazard Risk Governance, Status Quo in the EUSALP Region";
Bericht für EUSALP Action Group 8; 2019; 169 S.

Natural Hazard Risk Governance is a rather new subject of scientific investigation. Managing natural hazards in its understanding of raising the effectiveness and efficiency of the public sector reached its limits. Therefore, there is a need for involving and empowering concerned people and institutions to take care of hazard prevention and handling events themselves. This also means, that there is a need for discussion processes where concerned people and public institutions altogether discuss and negotiate actual solutions and share responsibilities. Therein lies a certain paradigm shift from hazard management, as a more exclusively state lead task, to a governance approach, that is also able to integrate the risk perspective of natural hazards. The scientific discussion reveals the limits of using only design events and hazards probabilities for planning prevention measures, as damage potentials are not considered properly. Therefore, risk as an essential parameter for the whole discussion on how to cope with natural hazards needs to be integrated in practice.
The EU-Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP) aims generally to map governance processes and capacities within the EUSALP perimeter. Action Group 8 started such a mapping for natural hazards with a focus on risk governance. The research cannot provide a holistic evaluation of governance mechanisms in all member states but instead an initial mapping, based on the expertise of the group members. Therefore, workshops with a comparative framework for assessing governance characteristics, qualities and capacities were used to receive a graphical evaluation. Results and critical aspects were discussed within the group and a comparative analysis of the responsibilities and capacities in the existing national management systems were added in the study as a basis for further projects and research.
On the whole, the initial mapping of Risk Governance for natural hazards within the EUSALP perimeter showed that the concept of risk gets widely discussed, but is not necessarily seen in connection with governance mechanisms. Risk gets evaluated at the moment concerning the extent it can help improve hazard management, while governance mechanisms are in place on all kind of levels and for different natural hazards. Especially in connection with flood hazards, processes which involve and empower not only institutional stakeholders but also local people or establish a regional perspective were identified. Nevertheless, there does not exist a consistent implementation of the Risk Governance as a concept throughout the EUSALP region. Action is instead carried by initiatives on all kind of levels and within the public as well as private sector to overcome limitations of an exclusively state-centered management approach of natural hazards. To sum up, there exists still a big potential to foster risk governance by integrating concerned people and intuitions in discussions and negotiations on measures for preparedness, response and recovery and to share responsibilities.

risk governance, natural hazards, spatial planning, disaster risk management, EUSALP, macro-regional strategy

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_279225.pdf