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The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis and an optimization model of the spatial impact for the externalities derived from urban regeneration and rehabilitation of degraded and segregated historic heritage areas.

From the amount invested and state intervention locations, an impact index is put forward. The spatial distribution of these impact indexes in the interventions' area of influence will be the basis for the analysis. Hence, by setting some specific objectives of the decision agent about this distribution homogeneity, and with the aim of avoiding inner segregation and to facilitate the sustainable urban development and cohesion of the neighborhood as a whole, a model which will allow the allocation of the budget available among the different locations fixed a priori is proposed.

It is found that by comparing the spatial distributions of impact indexes obtained in both situations, a measure of the urban regeneration and rehabilitation process and its impact can be obtained.

In order to favour the neighborhoods' internal cohesion and to avoid inner segregation, the model enables one to better address priority areas of intervention inside a historic heritage urban area and to better achieve sustainable urbanization by providing a more equitable and efficient managing of resources.

This paper is an editorial to JCHMSD's Volume 2 Issue 1. Its purpose is to introduce the selection of papers in the issue.

The paper discusses the increased focus of national and local authorities, as well as multilateral agencies, on historic cities in a search for a more sustainable process of urban development that integrates environmental, social and cultural concerns into the planning, design and implementation of urban management programmes and projects. The recent adoption of a new policy instrument by UNESCO, the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, is providing a set of general principles in support of sustainable urban heritage management and the paper further explains the first results of a field testing of the embedded Historic Urban Landscape approach in two different geo‐cultural regions of the world (i.e. Central Asia and East Africa). It points to fields of further research, which are linked to the papers selected for this issue.

The Historic Urban Landscape approach, as promoted in the new UNESCO Recommendation on the subject, facilitates a structuring and priority setting of the manifold needs and wishes in the broader urban development and heritage management process, thereby creating clarity and understanding in an often very complex process with competing demands.

The new UNESCO Recommendation was adopted on 10 November 2011 and this research paper is the first to expound on an implementation of the approach embedded therein, explaining its merits and potential.

The integral approach to risk is currently an important background for the local development processes within the sustaintability framework. Given the greater frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events in the period 2005-2015, whose inventory shows a total of 78 extreme climate events in the four thermal stations, the purpose of this paper is to analyze risk situations and their corresponding management in the tourist destinations (TD) of the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Risk management in TDs has not been addressed in depth in the study area. Because of that, this study is exploratory and descriptive, and it was conducted by quantitative and qualitative methods. The occurrence of extreme weather events was the trigger of this study. Thereafter, the existence of risk situations was analyzed from the combination of natural hazards and material and human damage. The actions taken by the public sector were identified to make a diagnosis of the current management of coastal destinations in the province of Buenos Aires.

The result of this study shows that TDs do not apply integral models of risk management, as only 16% of the total registered events were attended by public management from reactive measures to the event. It is believed possible to replicate this study in other TDs, regardless of its main tourism modality, as the analysis carried out in the coastal destinations of Buenos Aires shows that it is necessary to plan and manage risk to avoid and/or mitigate material, social and economic damages of the resident and tourist population.

The main implication of the study, in practical terms, is associated with the incorporation of specific equipment for the detection of storms and other meteorological phenomena. In addition, it should start, from the management, with a process of awareness of the resident and tourist population about the risk and its consequences.

Knowing the existence of natural hazards is a strategic resource for public management. From the identification of the hazards, exposure and vulnerability of the population, it is possible to begin to take measures to mitigate the risk and conduct awareness campaigns about the risk situations that may arise from the occurrence of meteorological phenomena. in beach areas. In this sense, the development of a culture of risk is very important.

The relationship between the occurrence of extreme weather events and tourism has not been addressed in depth in Argentina. Therefore, this work provides an interdisciplinary vision (from tourism and physical geography) about the hazards that extreme phenomena represent in TDs, the situations of risk that they detaches there and the weakness of public management in coastal destinations of Buenos Aires. This case study shows that the absence of planning and risk management has serious implications for the continuity of the development processes of the destinations.