Improving Resilience through Cross-scale Knowledge Sharing

The rapid urbanization, often accompanied by uncontrolled use of land, occupation of unsafe environments as well as the increased rate of occurrence of climate events are introducing new elements of uncertainty. The idea of certainty or security that was fundamental to risk management in the past collapsed. In this context, the notion of ‘risk society’, introduced by Ulrich Beck in 1992, is considered as a shifting paradigm in world security, where our modern society becomes ever more interdependent and more complex, and consequently more vulnerable to threats and risks. New paths for planning and risk management practices are required in order to be able to enlarge the numbers of actors, including citizens, and able to deploy all form of expert and not expert knowledge, in innovative ways. Planning in the context of risk society requires flexibility in knowledge systems and learning process that are the main tools for the cross-scale interaction among actors. The present work aims to explore the potential of sharing data, information and knowledge among different stakeholders and with citizens in order to create a more efficient governance and flexibility in risk prevention, improving the resilience of territorial systems.