Hospital safety in spatial and urban planning and design– seismic zone in the Kolubara region in Serbia

Abstract

Natural and technological disasters in the European countries have caused significant loss of life and damage to structures and infrastructure, which has led to the ratification of conventions at world level in the field of disaster preparedness (Hyogo Framework for Action and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Management).These strategies were also adopted at the lower levels of national decision-making in order to establish risk reduction and control on acceptable level. Since disasters can cause severe hazards on social infrastructure (healthcare facilities, schools etc.), these objects should be specifically treated in urban and spatial plans in terms of resilience-improvement. This paper presents methodology of Hospital Safety Index (HSI) adapted for the territory of Western Balkan countries, on the case study of seismic risk zone in the Kolubara Region in Serbia. This zone has history of seismic hazards, which have led to implementation of numerous spatial and urban plans for renovation and application of new measures in risk reduction. Main goal of the paper is to implement HSI as new methodology in spatial and urban planning, not only on healthcare facilities, but also on the wider network of social infrastructure that were and still are jeopardized by seismic risk. Also, the paper proposes measures and potential interventions for improvement of healthcare facilities in seismically vulnerable region of Kolubara, based on HSI.