Although the increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters assigns a key role to disaster risk management in current debate on sustainable development, the efforts of national and local authorities to develop risk-informed planning strategies and increase disaster preparedness are still limited. In multi-hazard urban environments, the main criticality to support risk-informed planning strategies is the persisting lack of effective knowledge bases focused on the vulnerability of exposed assets to different hazards. Hence, this contribution, according to the first priority of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction—understanding disaster risk—and by tidying up methods and indicators developed in both EU research projects and scientific studies devoted to multi-risk and vulnerability assessment, aims at better using available knowledge to guide risk-informed spatial planning. In detail, an indicator-based method to carry out a comprehensive exposure and vulnerability analysis has been outlined and tested on a case study area, the multi-hazard urban area of Campi Flegrei, located in the western part of the metropolitan city of Naples in the South of Italy. The proposed method may contribute to the building up of an effective risk knowledge base, enabling planners to easily access information on exposure and vulnerabilities to different hazards, and to differently combine them into output maps capable of supporting risk- informed planning strategies.

Campi Flegrei (Southern Italy) is the largest volcanic caldera in Europe and one of the most densely inhabited all over the world. The Campi Flegrei region has been populated for millennia and has been well known for the episodic periods of uplift, subsidence and seismicity since Roman times. Nevertheless, also due to the long time that has passed since the last eruption, the population’s awareness of living in a high-risk area is quite limited. Furthermore, spatial and emergency planning in this area has been long neglected and often ineffective. Hence, following a brief description of the most recent volcanic events occurred in Campi Flegrei, this paper provides an overview of the emergency and spatial plans and of the risk communication activities so far implemented. Then, the results of a survey carried out in the last year highlight the main gaps in hazard and risk awareness as well as in the knowledge of the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) system. A comparison of the survey’s outcomes with those of a previous one, published in 2013, allows for the understanding if residents’ risk perception and awareness have changed due to the still on-going unrest phase. The outcomes of the survey may be useful to drive local authorities towards more integrated policies to improve resilience to disasters and implement holistic DRM at all levels, in line with goal 11, target 11.9 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It is important that the current and the next generations of planners are well equipped to contribute to the realization and upscaling of effective climate change action as a central element in any urban or spatial planning educational program. Framing the issue in the European context, and building on studies of other global regions, this research is the first European-wide scale survey to look at the extent to which European planning schools are addressing climate change in their curricula. The findings highlight the need for more comprehensive education on this critical issue and that further research and resources are needed to enhance climate resilience education in planning.