Local and regional authorities can designate buildings and human activities that generate major constraints for land use and regulate this occupation as appropriate.

Under the Land Use Planning and Development Act, the development plan of a regional county municipality and the planning regulations of the local municipalities situated within the territory of the RCM should identify hazard-prone areas and regulate construction in these areas.

In addition, the Civil Protection Act gives municipal authorities an important role in prevention when it comes to building permit applications. When a municipality has serious grounds for believing that there is a risk at the location covered by the application, the permit should not be granted even if the regulations do not prohibit construction in that location.

The constraints of an anthropogenic nature, e.g. relating to human activity, involve buildings, works and activities which result from human intervention and which are susceptible, in certain circumstances (technological failure, explosion, contamination, etc.), to endanger the health, safety and well-being of people and cause significant damage to nearby property.

Industrial or commercial companies that use, produce or store hazardous products (fumes, gas, dust), roads and railways on which hazardous materials are transported and equipment whose breakage could threaten the surrounding population (dams, gas pipelines, etc.) can be considered as anthropogenic constraints that could cause harm.

Taking into account anthropogenic constraints in the land use planning process and urban planning regulations can mitigate the negative effects of certain activities on people, property and the environment in the event of an accident or failure, while maintaining the will to promote the good functioning and even the expansion of the targeted businesses. In fact, it is important to emphasize that these powers do not aim to regulate the sources of constraints themselves, but rather to regulate or prohibit uses, constructions or works located near them as a preventive measure.

Ultimately, in order to better integrate the search for sustainable development, it is important to take into account the principles of prevention and precaution in land use planning. Thus, in the presence of a known risk, prevention, mitigation and corrective actions should be implemented, in priority at the source. Likewise, where there is a risk of serious or irreversible damage, the lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a pretext to postpone the adoption of effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

The Civil Protection Act provides for an obligation that every person whose activities or property generate a major disaster risk is required to report the risk to the local municipality where the source of the risk is located. The purpose of this law is the protection of persons and property against disasters, through prevention measures, emergency response planning, response operations in actual or imminent disaster situations and recovery operations.

Land use planning is part of this overall approach of risk management, as a preventive measure, in addition to risk-reduction measures at the source, emergency response planning, communication to the population, etc.