Resilience thinking and urban planning in a coastal environment at risks of tsunamis: the case study of Mehuín, Chile

Abstract

It is critical to understand how to accommodate the 'resilience thinking' approach in city planning, in order for urban environments to adapt to extreme natural events. This study explored from both a conceptual and applied perspective, whether or not the resilience thinking approach has been adressed in urban plan-ning, using Mehuin, Chile, as a case study. The methodology involved a qualitative review of planning tools, in orden to analyze the extent to which urban resilience attributes (e.g. diversity and redundancy) are addressed in Mehuin's planning, do-cuments, along with a quantitative evaluation of resilience dimensions (i.e. physi-cal, environmental and social) for Mehuin's urban environment. Our findings indicated that the environmental dimension has the greatest ¡nfluence on the adaptive capacity of Mehuín; however, this is not addressed in the urban planning tools. These divergent results are further discussed with respect to the potential challenges that could arise in current planning science, as we know it.