Global environmental change, natural hazards, vulnerability and disaster resilience Necessity of a widening of perspectives in spatial planning

Climate change and the increase of extreme weather events (floods, storms etc.) are signals of global environmental change, which implies new challenges for spatial planning. The paper examines how spatial planning and particularly regional planning focuses on natural hazards and vulnerability. Based on the example of flooding and preventive flood protection it shows that the current focus in planning lies mainly on the hazard rather than on the vulnerability. This is problematic due to the fact that climate change implies changes within the frequency and intensity of flood events. Thus the static focus on a 100 years flood event is misleading. Therefore it is essential to shift the focus and to take into account the vulnerability of society and that of different land uses. The paper discusses fundamentals and key terms. It shows how the concept of vulnerability can be made more concrete for spatial planning.