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Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2013
From Shared Risk to Shared Value: the Business Case for Disaster Risk Reduction |
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Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2013
From Shared Risk to Shared Value: the Business Case for Disaster Risk Reduction |
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Box 8.11 Social and green cities in low-income countries
Fig 8.8 The Thimpu Structure Plan lays out the existing river front and planned enhanced development of urban green spaces and social meeting points
(Sources: Government of Bhutan, 2004
Government of Bhutan. 2004.,Thimpu Structure Plan, 2002–-2007. Revision 1st August 2004., Ministry of Works and Human Settlement. Department of Urban Development and Engineering Services., Bhutan.. . IIED (International Institute for Ennvironment and Development). 2012.,The global land rush: what the evidence reveals about scale and geography., IIED Briefing, April 2012, written by Lorenzo Cotula and Emily Polack., London: IIED.,. . IIED (International Institute for Ennvironment and Development). 2012a.,Draft Resilient Cities report., Unpublished contribution to the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Report 2012. Draft of 6 July 2012)., Geneva,Switzerland: UNISDR.. . In the city of Thimpu, Bhutan, the local government has begun to develop an urban planning process that takes account of the interrelationship between environmental sustainability, effective disaster risk management and human well-being. The Thimpu Structure Plan is based on “Principles of Intelligent Urbanism,”xviii acknowledging the needs of different occupations and lifestyles in the spatial organisation of the city. The plan is organized around 22 themes, including the achievement of a “balance with nature and tradition, conviviality and creating the ‘city of our dreams’” (Figure 8.8).
To achieve balanced industrial and residential development, environmental management and social and individual well-being, the municipality has employed a development suitability matrix that lays out the degrees of inter-compatibility of different types of land use. xx The matrix includes considerations of rainfall levels and temperature and of climate extremes, to encourage low-risk land-use planning. It supports development of multiple land uses to enhance livelihood diversification and sustainable development to strengthen the city’s economic resilience. However, there has been criticism in the local press regarding the slow implementation of the plan and its increasingly outdated features, as its original timeframe ended six years ago.
In addition, Thimpu is still challenged with limited capacity in disaster risk management, including early warning and emergency funding, watershed management and access to risk information. But the municipal government’s attention not only to physical safety in planning economic development within the city but also to lifestyles and a social-environmental balance in the city landscape is an approach that may well prove to build midto long-term resilience. 138 Part II - Chapter 8
part of this value proposition.
For example, in Ecuador, Quito’s water utility (Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Agua Potable y Saneamiento de Quito) is encouraging sustainable
risk reduction through water conservation, environmental education and climate change adaptation. This includes the promotion of sustainable urban drainage systems, including using green roofs that reduce the risk of urban flooding by ab-
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