The World Bank handbook, “Handbook for Livable and Resilient Cities: Integrating Hazard and Risk Information into Urban Planning”, spanning over 200 pages, emphasizes that cities are crucial hubs for opportunities, living spaces, innovation, and economic growth.
Populations in cities are also expected to grow, with over half of the world’s population, 67%, expected to live in cities by 2050, which translates to around 7 billion people.
Cities play a crucial role in development and progress; however, they also face significant environmental, social, and economic challenges.
Additionally, cities are vulnerable to various hazards related to natural disasters and climate change. This vulnerability is often due to inadequate infrastructure, rising inequalities, and increasing exposure to risks.
How can cities address the escalating risks and hazards they face? The Handbook for Livable and Resilient Cities Integrating Hazard and Risk Information into Urban Planning is an important guide for decision-makers, planners, and practitioners committed to building cities that are not only resilient but also livable and economically vibrant.
It recommends a paradigm shift in how cities tackle these multiple risks and hazards, moving from reactive approaches to proactive, forward-looking strategies to reduce climate- and disaster-related impacts before they occur, thereby minimizing human and economic losses. Doing so entails integrating risk into urban planning.
The handbook defines livable and resilient cities as urban areas and their surroundings in which green urban growth, social inclusion, resilient built environments, and shared prosperity are promoted.
It ensures that people have access to healthy environments, affordable housing, basic services, jobs, low-carbon transportation, and economic opportunities.
The handbook is divided into three sections.
Part 1 Conceptual Framework.
Introduces the main concepts, principles, goals, governance, structures, planning scales, and capacities needed for undertaking risk-informed urban planning processes. It also describes restrict, condition, and promote (RCP) measures for risk-informed urban planning.
Part 2 Process and Instruments for Planning and Implementation.
Elaborates on the operational process for embedding hazard and risk information into urban plans. Addresses regulatory, financial, and nonfinancial instruments and capacities for implementation, and explains the importance of monitoring and evaluation in updating and enhancing risk-informed urban plans.
Part 3 Integration of Different Types of Hazards and Risks into Urban Plans.
These hazards cover hydrometeorological hazards (floods: flash, pluvial, riverine, and coastal), geohazards (earthquakes, shallow movements, and volcanic activities), and climatological hazards (extreme heat, heat waves, urban heat island, droughts, and wildfires). Instead of examining large-scale drivers such as cyclones or climatic trends, it focuses on the primary and secondary hazards they generate, which directly affect the built environment and shape urban risk.
Each chapter in this section identifies risk-informed planning measures of Restrict, Condition, Promote (RCP) based on hazard and communities’ risk acceptability, and promotes resilience-enhancing action. These measures are consolidated in practical catalogs with examples to guide local planning and decision-making.
This section ends with key takeaways that summarize why cities should move beyond reactive measures to proactive, integrated, and sustainable planning approaches to achieve livability and resilience goals.
“The call to action is clear: cities must integrate climate and risk considerations into all aspects of planning and decision-making. This means shifting from a mindset of short-term gains to one of long-term resilience, where urban growth is managed with foresight, inclusivity, and environmental consciousness. Policy makers must adopt and enforce regulatory frameworks that embed risk prevention and risk reduction into urban planning. Planners and practitioners must leverage data, innovation, and participatory processes to ensure that development aligns with resilience objectives. Communities must be actively engaged, empowered to contribute their knowledge and priorities, and included in decision-making processes that affect their future.”
You can download and read the handbook by following the link in the “Source” section below.
Source:
World Bank. 2025. The Handbook for Livable and Resilient Cities. Integrating Hazard and Risk Information into Urban Planning. Washington, DC: World Bank. Retrieved from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/d7ee1212-42ed-4d8a-9ffa-225152ee65df
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