Resilient city, an approach to cope with natural hazard

In cities grown without a rational planning, anthropogenic (war, terrorism, arson, civil disorder) and natural hazards (hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, landslide, volcanic eruption, flood, fire) pose a major threat to cultural heritage, sometimes causing irreversible damages or the complete destruction of large areas. The Strategy for Risk Reduction at World Heritage Properties poposed by UNESCO [1] highlights the importance of several issues: the heritage protection and preservation, integration of cultural heritage into disaster reduction policies and definition of a procedure to comprehend the risk concept into world heritage strategic action plans. This document also includes the recomandations of Hyogo Framework International Action Plans [2] pointing out the need of systematic actions to address disaster risks and build resilience of nations and communities. Resilience is a key concept for the risk reduction; technical interventions, regulations and consciousness of inhabitants can widley improve the ability of cultural heritage to withstand and cope with natural hazards. In this framework, a comprehensive excursus on scientific literature, best practises and assessment frameworks made possible to identificy the status of knowledge, the open research question and the key challenges to improve the resilience of public spaces.