RISK MANAGEMENT. WHEN WILL IT BE, IF NOT NOW?

Abstract

Disasters, both man-made and natural, are constantly threatening territories and contemporary cities. Human settlements of various sizes ranging from rural areas to metropolises, are frequently exposed to both types of danger in Latin American contexts. Pandemics, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, as well as economic crises, socio-spatial segregation, privatization, and dysfunctional urban growth patterns, do exert a particularly concerning pressure on contemporary cities. Several disciplines today describe a complex scenario of multidimensional urban problems: physical-spatial, socio-cultural, and technological-environmental. This is a call for academic reflection and a critical as well as dialogical contribution to provide new (or renewed) concepts and solutions regarding these concerns.

This journal welcomes local and international academics to publish their theoretical and practical findings in order to develop a new framework of material and concepts, while it addresses the challenges and risks that we encounter in our coexistence spaces on a daily basis.

The 21st Issue of Eídos claims for reflection about the complex issue of risk management and opens up for a debate on some of the major open questions on urban and territorial planning, where tools and practices (good or bad) can certainly influence the present and the near future of our settlements; landscape, architecture and construction, highlighting the process of designing as a method that could prevent with awareness, prudence and innovation, the challenges faced today by natural areas as well as heritage, modern and contemporary buildings; and finally, on the public policies, since the world of top-down decisions could amplify, multiply and orient the effects of how we manage our urban and rural assets and resources.