This book is a collection of essays, bringing together seventeen contributions from different disciplines, with various, but complementary points of view, to discuss the directions and key components of risk governance. Some of the many issues of interest to risk scholars addressed in this work include the analysis of proactive approaches to the governance of risk from natural hazards; approaches to broaden the scope of public policies related to the management of risks from natural hazards, including emergency and environmental management, community development and spatial planning. The texts further explore how spatial planning can contribute to risk governance by influencing the occupation of hazard-prone areas and they review the central role of emergency management in risk policy.
This work will contribute significantly to the augmentation of the conceptual framework of risk governance and increase the awareness of practitioners and decision-makers to the need to adopt proactive policies, leading to a more integrated, participative and adaptive governance that can respond more efficiently to the increasing uncertainty resulting from escalating risk exposure and global environmental change.