AN OVERVIEW OF AGENT-BASED MODELLING APPROACHES FOR INTEGRATED FLOOD MANAGEMENT

Previously, Integrated Flood Management (IFM) system has been implemented by several hydrological researchers in order to minimize the global flood risk by providing a convincing flood risk assessment and management, as well as sustainable adaptation and disaster alleviation policy. Flood risk is dynamic interaction between natural disasters and human vulnerability. Basically, methods for quantifying flood risk are fully-fledged but tend to treat artificial and economic vulnerabilities as static or subject to changes in external trends. However, interpretive research is rarely conducted to investigate people’s decision-making and acknowledge to flood warnings during flood event. The integration of Agent-Based Model (ABM) in simulating the interactions and dynamic responses of individual or organizations in a spatial environment during the flood events or prior to the events were reviewed. The ABM model is defined as a computational method used to simulate the behaviour and the interaction of autonomous decision-making entities in a network or system it is used to evaluate their impact on the entire system. Therefore, the ABM approach has been chosen to emulate the complexity of the IFM process due to its capability and flexibility to simulate the dynamic of human-environment scenarios in the spatial environment.

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Integrating Strategic Environmental Assessment to Climate Change Adaption in the Chao Phraya River Basin: Case Study Flood Management Plans in Ayutthaya

Sustainability in Environment ◽

10.22158/se.v6n2p55 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. p55

Author(s):

Wilawan Boonsri Prathaithep ◽

Vilas Nitivattananon

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Environmental Assessment ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Flood Management ◽

Integrated System ◽

Strategic Environmental Assessment ◽

Human Environment ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

Traditionally, flood management has concentrated on providing protection against floods using technical measures, but there is currently an international shift towards a more integrated system of flood risk management, whereby flood risk is defined as the probability of flooding multiplied by the potential consequences. Climate change is a great challenge to sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Thailand. The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges associated with the current situation and projected impacts of climate change on the disasters and the human environment in Thailand, to review and explore the potential of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and to propose SEA in making informed decisions relevant to the implementation of the new adaptation framework in a flood management plan. Thus, current measures on how Thailand is responding to the recent impacts of climate change in river basin planning are presented. It is imperative that an appropriate environmental assessment tool, such as SEA be employed in making rational decisions regarding adaptation frameworks. SEA offers a structured and proactive environmental tool for integrating of climate change adaption into formulating Policies, Plans, and Programs (PPPs) among relevant sectors.

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Agent‐based Modeling to Evaluate Human–Environment Interactions in Community Flood Risk Mitigation

Risk Analysis ◽

10.1111/risa.13854 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yu Han ◽

Liang Mao ◽

Xuqi Chen ◽

Wei Zhai ◽

Zhong‐Ren Peng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Flood Risk ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Agent Based Modeling ◽

Human Environment ◽

Agent Based

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Modeling Multiparty Competition

10.23943/princeton/9780691139036.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Laver ◽

Ernest Sergenti

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Adaptive Learning ◽

Party System ◽

Decision Rules ◽

Agent Based Modeling ◽

Party Competition ◽

Strategic Analysis ◽

New Approach ◽

Agent Based ◽

Autonomous Decision

This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the need for a new approach to modeling party competition. It then makes a case for the use of agent-based modeling to study multiparty competition in an evolving dynamic party system, given the analytical intractability of the decision-making environment, and the resulting need for real politicians to rely on informal decision rules. Agent-based models (ABMs) are “bottom-up” models that typically assume settings with a fairly large number of autonomous decision-making agents. Each agent uses some well-specified decision rule to choose actions, and there may be considerable diversity in the decision rules used by different agents. Given the analytical intractability of the decision-making environment, the decision rules that are specified and investigated in ABMs are typically based on adaptive learning rather than forward-looking strategic analysis, and agents are assumed to have bounded rather than perfect rationality. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

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AN AGENT BASED MODEL FOR LAND USE POLICIES IN COASTAL AREAS

Coastal Engineering Proceedings ◽

10.9753/icce.v35.management.9 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

Shima Nabinejad ◽

Holger SchÃ¼ttrumpf

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Land Use ◽

Social Interactions ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Flood Management ◽

Human Interaction ◽

Complex Nature ◽

Agent Based Model ◽

Agent Based ◽

Land Use Policies

Reducing the probability of flooding by flood defence structures might not be successful without appropriate actions taken in order to mitigate flood damages. Moreover, success depends on actions at both governmental and individual levels. Therefore, farmers as the inhabitant of flooding areas may contribute to flood management in terms of land use policies which lead to communication, human interaction, and adaptation. However, these social behaviors have not taken into account in flood management studies due to their complex nature and human has been only considered as the receptor of flooding without paying attention to multiple feedbacks over time horizons with a dynamic approach. In our study, we overcome this deficiency by employing Agent Based Model (ABM) of land use policy in flood risk management and address challenges regarding social interactions in this research area. Our Agent Based Model includes perspectives from engineering, decision making, and socio-economics allowing to model human-flood interactions. In this model, farmers are considered as individuals whose decisions depend on climatic conditions, crop yields, costs and prices, flood damage, personal risk perception, and their social interactions. This is achieved by integrating three main modules including hydrological module, flood analysis module, and decision making module in the frame of Agent Based Model. This paper has shed some light on main concepts of our Agent Based Model including the developed methodology, main modules, required information, and initial results. It also summarizes the components of the modules and the governed interactions.

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Fluvial flood risk management in a changing world

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-10-509-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 509-527 ◽

Cited By ~ 225

Author(s):

B. Merz ◽

J. Hall ◽

M. Disse ◽

A. Schumann

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Risk Management ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Flood Management ◽

Flood Risk Management ◽

Problem Definition ◽

Organizational Characteristics ◽

The Social ◽

Uncertain Future ◽

Integrated Responses

Abstract. Flood risk emerges from the interaction of hazard and vulnerability. Over recent decades the notion of risk being the basis for flood management decisions has become widely accepted and operationalised through the use of models and quantified risk analysis providing the evidence for risk-informed decision making. However, it is now abundantly apparent that changes in time, at a range of scales, of pertinent variables that determine risk are not a second order consideration but, instead, fundamentally challenge the conventional approach to flood risk management. The nature of some of these changes, particularly those that operate on extended timescales, are highly uncertain, yet decisions that may have implications for several decades still have to be taken. In this paper we explore how flood risk management may be adapted to address processes of uncertain future change. We identify a range of levels at which change may be incorporated in decision making: in the representation of uncertain non-stationary quantities; in the rules that are used to identify preferred options; in the variety of options that may be contemplated for flood risk management; in the scope of problem definition, which increasingly extends to address multiple hazards and multiple functions of river basins; and in the social and organizational characteristics that promote adaptive capacity. Integrated responses to changing flood risk need to attend to each of these levels of decision making, from the technicalities of non-stationarity, to the promotion of resilient societies.

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Floods and climate: emerging perspectives for flood risk assessment and management

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ◽

10.5194/nhess-14-1921-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (7) ◽

pp. 1921-1942 ◽

Cited By ~ 117

Author(s):

B. Merz ◽

J. Aerts ◽

K. Arnbjerg-Nielsen ◽

M. Baldi ◽

A. Becker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Flood Risk ◽

River System ◽

Flood Management ◽

Global Scale ◽

Flood Risk Assessment ◽

Traditional System ◽

Flood Estimation ◽

Risk Assessment And Management ◽

Flood Characteristics

Abstract. Flood estimation and flood management have traditionally been the domain of hydrologists, water resources engineers and statisticians, and disciplinary approaches abound. Dominant views have been shaped; one example is the catchment perspective: floods are formed and influenced by the interaction of local, catchment-specific characteristics, such as meteorology, topography and geology. These traditional views have been beneficial, but they have a narrow framing. In this paper we contrast traditional views with broader perspectives that are emerging from an improved understanding of the climatic context of floods. We come to the following conclusions: (1) extending the traditional system boundaries (local catchment, recent decades, hydrological/hydraulic processes) opens up exciting possibilities for better understanding and improved tools for flood risk assessment and management. (2) Statistical approaches in flood estimation need to be complemented by the search for the causal mechanisms and dominant processes in the atmosphere, catchment and river system that leave their fingerprints on flood characteristics. (3) Natural climate variability leads to time-varying flood characteristics, and this variation may be partially quantifiable and predictable, with the perspective of dynamic, climate-informed flood risk management. (4) Efforts are needed to fully account for factors that contribute to changes in all three risk components (hazard, exposure, vulnerability) and to better understand the interactions between society and floods. (5) Given the global scale and societal importance, we call for the organization of an international multidisciplinary collaboration and data-sharing initiative to further understand the links between climate and flooding and to advance flood research.

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Investigating Decision Mechanisms of Statutory Stakeholders in Flood Risk Strategy Formation: A Computational Experiments Approach

Water ◽

10.3390/w12102716 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (10) ◽

pp. 2716

Author(s):

Ifigeneia Koutiva ◽

Archontia Lykou ◽

Chris Pantazis ◽

Christos Makropoulos

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Strategy Formation ◽

Protection Measures ◽

Agent Based ◽

Decision Making Processes ◽

Decision Mechanisms ◽

User Friendly ◽

The City

Cities at risk of extreme hydro-meteorological events need to be prepared to decrease the extent of the impacts. However, sometimes, authorities only react to catastrophes failing to proactively prepare against extremes. This can be a result of both absent structural protection measures and problematic governance. While for the first, models exist that can simulate the effect, the effect of the latter is difficult to quantify. This work aims to explore the effects that typical authorities’ behaviour has on the decisions for preparing and protecting a city against floods. This behaviour includes how the different authorities decide, for example, on whether or not to cooperate with each other, build something, assign funding to something, etc. These decisions affect directly the preparedness against and the protection from flood events. For that matter, the institutional analysis framework was used to conceptualise the decision-making processes of authorities responsible for flood risk management. Based on this, an agent-based modelling tool has been created, enabling the exploration of the system’s behaviour under different scenarios. The tool is used as a case study of the responsible authorities for flood protection in the city of Rethymno on the island of Crete, Greece. The tool has a user-friendly interface enabling the end-users to explore the drivers of decision-making processes under different conditions.

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Floods and climate: emerging perspectives for flood risk assessment and management

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/nhessd-2-1559-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 1559-1612 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

B. Merz ◽

J. Aerts ◽

K. Arnbjerg-Nielsen ◽

M. Baldi ◽

A. Becker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Flood Risk ◽

River System ◽

Flood Management ◽

Global Scale ◽

Flood Risk Assessment ◽

Traditional System ◽

Hazard Exposure ◽

Flood Estimation ◽

Risk Assessment And Management

Abstract. Flood estimation and flood management have traditionally been the domain of hydrologists, water resources engineers and statisticians, and disciplinary approaches have abound. Dominant views have been shaped; one example is the catchment perspective: floods are formed and influenced by the interaction of local, catchment-specific characteristics, such as meteorology, topography and geology. These traditional views have been beneficial, but they have a narrow framing. In this paper we contrast traditional views with broader perspectives that are emerging from an improved understanding of the climatic context of floods. We conclude: (1) extending the traditional system boundaries (local catchment, recent decades, hydrological/hydraulic processes) opens up exciting possibilities for better understanding and improved tools for flood risk assessment and management. (2) Statistical approaches in flood estimation need to be complemented by the search for the causal mechanisms and dominant processes in the atmosphere, catchment and river system that leave their fingerprints on flood characteristic. (3) Natural climate variability leads to time-varying flood characteristics, and this variation may be partially quantifiable and predictable, with the perspective of a dynamic, climate informed flood risk management. (4) Efforts are needed to fully account for factors that contribute to changes in all three risk components (hazard, exposure, vulnerability), and to better understand the interactions between society and floods. (5) Given the global scale and societal importance, we call for the organization of an international multidisciplinary collaboration and data sharing initiative to understand further the links between climate and flooding and to advance flood research.

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Does Flooding Define the Aquapelago? Constructing Venice’s flood disaster risk personality

Shima The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures ◽

10.21463/shima.102 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ilan Kelman

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Risk Management ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Flood Management ◽

Disaster Risk ◽

Flood Risk Management ◽

Flood Disaster ◽

Flood Disasters ◽

The Impact

Part of Venice’s character and appeal is sometimes constructed and construed as being not just about water, but also about the role which flood management plays, especially avoiding floods. A ‘disaster risk personality’ is created regarding water-land interaction, based mainly on avoiding inundation. This paper explores the construction of this approach for Venice’s flood disaster risk personality through a conceptual examination of Venice as an aquapelago to understand water-land links and separations. With this baseline, three decision-making lessons for Venice’s flood disaster risk personality are detailed: (i) the dynamicity of the water-land interface and hence the aquapelago, (ii) the impact of structural approaches on disaster risk personality, and (iii) the implications of submergence. While non-structural approaches to flood risk management tend to have the best long-term successes in averting flood disasters, Venice has chosen the opposite approach of constructing a large barrier, substantively changing its disaster risk personality. This choice is not inherently positive or negative, with the desirability and usefulness being subjective and based on the (flood) disaster risk personality sought for the locale.

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Capturing flood risk dynamics with a coupled agent-based and hydraulic modelling framework

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-2659 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Tamara Michaelis ◽

Luigia Brandimarte ◽

Giuliano Di Baldassarre ◽

Maurizio Mazzoleni

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Flood Risk ◽

Flood Protection ◽

Hydraulic Modelling ◽

Protection Measures ◽

Agent Based ◽

The Real ◽

Modelling Framework ◽

Levee System ◽

Over Time

Floods are one of the costliest natural hazards worldwide, affecting millions of people every year. To plan flood risk reduction strategies, there is a need to understand how risk changes over time. In traditional flood risk assessment, vulnerability is often unrealistically considered constant in time, which does not reflect patterns observed in the real world. The coupled human and natural flood system is complex and determined by two-way interactions between the two subsystems. Floodplain dynamics may affect human behavior (e.g. by triggering the implementation of protection measures at different scales) which changes exposure and vulnerability, while they are also in turn influenced by human activities (e.g. land-use changes or flood protection structures). Here we explore how these two-way interactions influence changes in flood risk over time, with a focus on the role of individual and governmental decision-making, by developing a coupled agent-based and hydraulic modelling framework.In our framework, household agents are located in a floodplain protected by a levee system. Individual behavior is based on Protection Motivation Theory and it comprises (as a response to floods) the options to do nothing, invest in private flood protection measures, or file a complaint to the government. The governmental decision making process about the implementation of technical flood protection measures, i.e. reinforcing the levee system, is a compromise between a Cost-Benefit-Analysis and relative number of filed complaints from the households. The agents take decisions at every time step of a long time series of annual maximum water levels: in case of levee breach, the floodplain water level is estimated by the LISFLOOD 2D hydraulic model, which is dynamically coupled into the agent-based model.We show that this coupled model is capable of replicating adaptation and levee effects, which have been empirically observed by several scholars in numerous floodplains around the world. Thus, our framework provides a useful explanatory tool for assessing different spatial and temporal dynamics of flood risk in a socio-hydrological system. Moreover, the new modelling approach can explicitly simulate the spatial distribution of flood risk which allows for the analysis of conflicting interests in neighbouring communities. First, efforts have been made to include farmer agents into the model to simulate conflicts between urban and rural areas. Further, we exploit data from the real word in order to assess the credibility of our model and, lastly, use the model to investigate the effects of different climate scenarios on these types of conflicts.&#160;

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