Disaster mitigation in landslide and flood prone areas of Bogota

The District Capital, through the Fondo de Prevencion y Atencion de Emergencias has been working on the development of a project in special treatment zone risk reduction of landsliding and flooding, in order to, reduce risks associated to landsliding and flooding phenomena to which some inhabitants of the city of Bogotá ¡re exposed. This initiative includes the Mitigation Works Building, as a strucrtural measure for threat reductuion, the non mitigatable high risk family resettling, as a structural measure for the reduction in vulnerability, and the adaptation of the premises evacuated in the process of relocation , as a preventive measure, as and when faced with new occupations. 87 mitigation works have been carried out between 1998 and 2001. 1341 families have been resettled and, the premises evacuated by relocated families have been adapted. The vulnerabilty of nearly 23.000 persons was reduced through these actions. The protection of the non mitigatable high risk soils, the zoning of threats and risks of the urban perimetre, and the prioritising of high risk resettling for the ordering of territories and the conditioning for future urban developments in high and middle risk zones has been incorporated into the legal ordering of the city.