Studying spatial plan in coastal urban environment - facing global threatand adapting to local condition

Abstract

Spatial planning is a process involving projection on future usage of space. It requires in put from different sectors and stakeholders. Nowadays planners are also confronted with the increasing number of disasters in highly populated and economically important areas. There is a growing needs and awareness to incorporate disaster risk information in the spatial planning. One of the particular areas vulnerable to disaster is coastal urban environment. It is facing global threat from the impact of climate change and local-driven natural hazards. The paper firstly reviews literature on coastal urban cities and its characteristic. It also presents their function and importance to the society in terms of economic development and environmental sustainability. It then followed by a review on recent studies on global warming and natural hazards confronted by coastal cities as well as a conceptual frame work to reduce them. Spatial plan was proposed as a long term framework to facilitate disaster risk reduction.

The paper took a case study approach using a medium size city of Semarang in Indonesia as an illustration. Three aspects were evaluated, how the spatial plan linked to the idea of disaster risk reduction, how the spatial plan address the issue of disaster risk reduction and how the spatial plan map represent disaster risk reduction effort. The findings indicate that the recent spatial planning documents in the case study area have made considerable progresses in addressing coastal disaster risk issues. The number of disaster related issues discussed in the Spatial Planning documents of 2010 to 2030 is much higher than those of 2000 to 2010. Guidance on what types of land use appropriate for hazard prone area and plans on hazard modification was provided. General directions for development restriction in hazard prone areas were also provided. Overall the city of Semarang has made considerable progress in addressing the numerous types of locally driven natural hazards, although with little reference to global threat from climate change.