Decision support tools for urban contingency policy: a scenario approach to risk management of the Vesuvio area in Naples, Italy

Contingency management, in particular the management of unanticipated events outside the control of an ordinary planning system, has in the last 50years become an important andfrequently debated issue in the scientific literature on complex systems management underrisk conditions. The urban system can be regarded as such an open complex system whereexternal events, not always foreseeable with a closed system's model, may strongly impact on the internal dynamics of an urban area.Conventionally, planning the future presupposes collecting information and analyzing itrationally in order to control for unexpected contingency events. But it is an importantquestion in the field of urban planning, how proper strategies can be developed to deal withexternal uncertainty and shocks that transcend the imagination of policy-makers. How should decision-makers respond to such unforeseen jumps in asystem?The aim of this paper is to present and apply a new scientific decision support method based on the future studies literature, with the aim to helpdecision-makers in the strategicmanagement of uncertainty and risk in order "to anticipate the extraordinary events correctlyin order to act more effectively" (Godet, 1987). In particular, we will deploy here the scenariomethodology in combination with multicriteria analysis and fuzzy set theory, as a useful