Flood risk mapping in territorial planning for disaster risk management. Scales of work and case studies in Spain

Flood risk causes the major socio-economic losses in the Spanish Mediterranean coast. As a result of a misalignment of land use policies and practices, which have not considered floods hazard sufficiently, the increase in the frequency of floods due to climate change, exposure and vulnerability have increased in last decades. Territorial planning is a key tool to promote preventive risk management, and risk mapping is the key piece for decision making at the different geographical scales of land use planning. This paper presents a systematic multi-scale analysis of risk map treatment in territorial planning instruments at different scales, and analyzes the degree of linkage between them. The analysis has been carried out in two case studies in Spain (Valencian Community and Andalusia). Results show that the use of flood risk mapping continues to pose important challenges, especially in urban planning documents, and in relation to vulnerability assessment.