Regional development of inland areas through disaster risk reduction and new connections with the coast

The planning strategies conceived and implemented in Europe in the last decades by land-management authorities to revive fragile and vulnerable inland areas have been focusing increasingly on the enhancement of their natural and cultural landscapes. However, the threats to inland areas imposed by climate change and (increasingly impactful) natural hazards have been exacerbating the now chronic depopulation of those regions, therefore increasing the decay of their natural and cultural assets, namely the decline of their landscape. Although relatively new, these threats have been affecting in many ways, and to great extent, all different types of inland areas, from the coastal hinterland, fairly close to the large and more attractive urban areas, to the most distant and least accessible mountain regions, with their peculiar landscape heritage rich of historical villages and towns. Therefore, new imperative paradigms such as disaster risk reduction, adaptive management and building back better, have not only drawn the attention and interest of cutting-edge research and practice, but also focused their efforts and energy towards their actual fulfilment. They are in fact some of the new ‘must’ emerged and being-established recently in spatial planning. After an extensive analysis of the conceptual framework and scientific literature backing these urgent and pressing issues, the research focuses on the case studies of three European macro-regions: the Italian Apennines (in Marche and Alta Versilia), the coastal hinterland of eastern Croatia (in Dalmatia), and the inland areas of northern Portugal (in the region of Alto Minho). In all cases, the impact of natural hazards, coupled with the ongoing process of littoralization and the aftermath of climate change, has significantly changed the appearance and structure of both landscape and local communities, undermining their environmental, sociocultural and economic sustainability. The dissertation develops therefore a cross-comparative analysis of the different case studies, in order to evaluate, in dialectical manner and from different angles, the strategic-planning models implemented or conceived in each case. The research outcome is a critic assessment of the outlined picture, interpreted and returned by elaborating and discussing on the potential of connecting inland areas to the coast, while reducing the risk of natural disasters, not only a prerequisite for the regional development of inland areas, but also an extraordinary opportunity to foster in fact their future regeneration.