Geohazard Studies for Urban Planning in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile: Some Lessons for Future Interactions Between Engineering Geoscientists and Urban Planners in Developing Countries

A series of novel seismic and landslide hazard studies funded by the Chilean Housing and City Planning Ministry were carried out in the Santiago Metropolitan Region in the aftermath of the 2010 Chile earthquake by university geoscientists and urban planning consultants. The studies aimed to suggest modifications of urban planning regulating plans. Interaction of geoscientists with urban planners, architects and other professionals proved to be challenging in order to get successful results. Issues such as work scale, terminology, lack of experience from policy makers in this kind of studies and shortcomings of the territorial planning instruments in enforcing restrictions in risk areas were identified. In this paper we summarize the conducted geohazard studies and discuss the main experiences arising from interaction between geoscientists and urban planners.