Enhancing Disaster Resilience through Spatial Planning Strategies, a Case Study of Bono Region, Ghana

Abstract

The adverse impact of climate change has necessitated the global community to leverage spatial planning to curb the negative impacts of such incidents. Disasters continue to occur in human settlements, which makes it necessary to develop resilience through spatial planning strategies. The research question underpinning this study is, how can disaster resilience be improved through spatial planning strategies? Reducing the impact of natural and anthropogenic hazards on communities requires enhancing disaster resilience through spatial planning techniques. The main objective is to promote land use policies that seek to mitigate the impact of disasters on communities in the Bono Region. The questionnaires were administered using the Kobo Toolbox software. The total number of questionnaires administered was 667 which was analyzed using Excel and application of the Mann-Whitney U Test for the hypothesis testing. The major findings were: 35% indicated that there is low enforcement of spatial plans, 42.68% of the respondents indicated low and very low effectiveness of urban governance institutions and 40.47% indicated that there is low and very low access to information and community engagement. The poor degree of spatial planning strategies that was discovered is further supported by the 62.8% of respondents who indicated that there is inadequate ability for disaster resilience within the research region in the previous conversations. Hazard assessment, land use planning, infrastructure resilience, community involvement, and policy integration can all be combined to significantly improve an urban area's capacity to withstand and recover from disaster events.