This paper aims to elaborate on the notion of resilience by analysing the historical long-term impact of recovery processes that follow catastrophic events. In this respect, the approach reveals the importance of two major dimensions of disaster recovery practices: the establishment of an effective resilience milieu in conjunction with the generation of safety knowledge. The analysis focuses on two island case studies in Greece that experienced devastating earthquakes in the 1950s: Cephalonia (Ionian Sea) and Santorini (South Aegean Sea). Both insular cases underwent a comprehensive and (in many respects) innovative reconstruction process that set the scene for establishing a ‘resilience milieu’ and, in a dialectical manner, a ‘safety culture’, which for many years has been embedded in local development trajectories and influenced spatial growth dynamics.

Τhe paper analyses an insular community, Astypalaia in the Aegean Sea, which hosts a distinct commons institution that has acted as a governance catalyst. It has so far safeguarded the delicate balance between the development of supplementary subsistence activities (agricultural, pastoral, fisheries, and food processing-supply), community building, fair distribution, and management of landed resources, and overall landscape justice. This article unfolds the critical factors that have fostered or restrained the longevity of this Landed Commons (LCs) and reveals the emerging risks from both exogenous (international and nationwide dynamics) and endogenous (organisational structures and governance capacity) agents. The case of Astypalaia is placed within the broader debate on the role of commons in local communities, leading to significant insights into how this LCs can be revalorised by the host community establishing renewed stewardship within current socio-economic trajectories.

Land policy as an all-encompassing socio-economic domain has experienced a long-standing evolutionary process operating either as a foundational component of spatial planning or as an inherent policy entity in developmental strategies. Either way has endowed the advancement of numerous policy tools of its own, like land administration-registration practices, land banks, land expropriation, land consolidation, pre-emption rights, air rights development transfer, development rights, taxation, re-parceling and land compensation mechanisms. At the same time, land policy has been a rather critical element in all phases of safety planning (emergency planning, recovery-reconstruction planning and disaster mitigation-prevention planning). This study elaborates on the issue of land policy as an eminent component interlinking spatial planning, safety planning and development policies. Further on it highlights the wide variety of land policy tools that allow dealing (proactively and reactively) with disaster management and promoting resilient territories. Set in this context, the aim of this article is to reveal the importance of land policy in flood protection, focusing on a distinct flood risk setting: the Evros River Basin in Northern Eastern Greece; and more specifically in the making of an integrated safety-resilience planning strategy.

This paper is based on the study of a distinct insular region in Greece: Cyclades Prefecture with reference to also to the broader Periphery of the Southern Aegean. It elaborates on the issue of island innovation systems and the role of actions driven by higher education institutions (HEIs) in knowledge infrastructure (KI) and capacity building (CB). The paper argues that an exceedingly high number of HEI research actions tend to develop with “relative autonomy” from local expertise, networks and knowledge patterns embedded in the insular setting. In addition, these actions are conditioned by the EU policy doctrine, the dominant central state perception of innovation policies and the adverse pattern of HEI development in the national territory. Its geographically scattered composition and scarcities in scientific specializations and research fields make the sole regional HEI feeble in its ability to assume a leading role in fostering KI and CB processes. From this context, a number of factors and obstacles militate against a knowledge area-wide integrated strategy, deriving from: (a) the local socio-economic setting; (b) the proliferation of HEI actions; and (c) the institutional-governance system. In parallel to such obstacles, however, there are indications of potential conditions of change emanating from the positive role of some HEIs actions, the relatively active presence of regional HEIs, the growth trends of the insular economy, the making of new niches and networks, the presence of international institutions and, above all, the building of an atmosphere of trust between local communities and HEIs.