Land Management for Risk Management of Disasters in Colombia

Abstract

In Colombia, land management is one of the major tools that contributed to the restructuring of the National Risk Management System, enabling local authorities to organize a common management approach at the central level, based on the principles of decentralization, coordination, complementarity and competition. The main objective is to promote coordinated strategic actions in order to enhance risk awareness, to reduce concrete risks and to prepare for effective emergency management. Land management has contributed to improve the capacity of local authorities to manage disaster risks through the transfer of greater autonomy from the national level to the departments and municipalities, and finally by strengthening municipal associations, as in the case of the Metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley, and its inter-risk management plan —Red Riesgos—.