Urban Flood Management Under Changing Climate

2022 ◽  
pp. 174-196
Author(s):  
Muhammed Sulfikkar Ahamed ◽  
Shyni Anilkumar

Climate change and the associated phenomenon have put major cities and their surroundings at multi-dimensional risk patterns because of hazards, with flooding being a major hazard in the Asian Peninsula. With authorities such as National Disaster Management Authority, India reporting multiple urban local bodies to be under flood risk, it is essential to prioritize flood risk management in the urban planning process in India. Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, India has been frequently affected by flooding events. Various factors have been attributed to the flood risk of Kochi Corporation, which requires validation. Against this backdrop, the study focuses on comprehending significant factors attributed to the vulnerability of settlements in the study region and promoting a way forward based on lessons learned and good practices across the world. This is achieved by analyzing significant databases and computations using GIS. The research outcome would help define strategies for sustainable land-use-based development, promoting effective flood management in the Kochi urban area.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Sandink ◽  
Andrew D. Binns

Urban flooding events are a significant driver of disaster loss, resulting in insured and uninsured losses, property damage, and negative impacts on residents and communities in Canada and internationally. The risk of flooding in urban environments is affected by watershed characteristics, environmental conditions, and the presence and condition of flood management and mitigation technologies. Several building- and lot-scale (or private-side) flood mitigation options are available to better protect properties from the risk of flooding, including backwater valves and foundation drainage systems to reduce the risks of sewer surcharge and infiltration flooding into basements, respectively. The overall success of private-side approaches to reduce the risk of flooding into buildings is reliant upon consistent installation procedures, building code interpretation and enforcement, public engagement, and maintenance. Current research into private-side approaches is presenting many opportunities and solutions for improved flood protection against water-related disasters at home. A greater understanding of the performance of private-side technologies under complex site-specific conditions can help to appoint flood prevention strategies better suited to individual home characteristics. This review paper explores the inter-related factors that affect the risk of basement flooding and explores the challenges and opportunities associated with the adoption and success of private-side flood mitigation approaches. Developing a greater understanding of basement flood vulnerability at the lot-scale will assist in identifying and prioritizing private-side strategies for homeowners to adopt and reduce the risk of flooding based on site-specific conditions affecting flood vulnerability. Continued efforts to evaluate and identify flood risk factors and the performance of private-side strategies are needed to better manage urban flooding events.


2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
D.J. Balmforth ◽  
P. Dibben

Managing urban flooding remains one of the key challenges for the operators of sewerage systems in the developed world. In the UK it has been an important area of investment over the last five-year asset management period, and will be even higher on the agenda for the next five. Although modern software tools are extremely sophisticated in estimating the probability of sewer surcharging and surface flooding, the science of assessing individual property flood risk is still in its infancy. The authors have developed a flood risk tool to identify the consequential effects of sewer system overloading in terms of individual property flood risk. This is post-processing software using the output from conventional modelling software. The tool recognises two separate causes of property flooding: backing up flow through connecting drains when sewers are surcharged, and the conveyance of flood flows over the surface. The severity of each is combined with return period to give a flood risk score for each property within a catchment. The tool has been trialled by UK water companies as a proactive way of managing flood risk and has been shown to offer significant advantages over traditional methods of urban flood management.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 160023 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Pregnolato ◽  
Alistair Ford ◽  
Craig Robson ◽  
Vassilis Glenis ◽  
Stuart Barr ◽  
...  

Critical infrastructure networks, including transport, are crucial to the social and economic function of urban areas but are at increasing risk from natural hazards. Minimizing disruption to these networks should form part of a strategy to increase urban resilience. A framework for assessing the disruption from flood events to transport systems is presented that couples a high-resolution urban flood model with transport modelling and network analytics to assess the impacts of extreme rainfall events, and to quantify the resilience value of different adaptation options. A case study in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK shows that both green roof infrastructure and traditional engineering interventions such as culverts or flood walls can reduce transport disruption from flooding. The magnitude of these benefits depends on the flood event and adaptation strategy, but for the scenarios considered here 3–22% improvements in city-wide travel times are achieved. The network metric of betweenness centrality, weighted by travel time, is shown to provide a rapid approach to identify and prioritize the most critical locations for flood risk management intervention. Protecting just the top ranked critical location from flooding provides an 11% reduction in person delays. A city-wide deployment of green roofs achieves a 26% reduction, and although key routes still flood, the benefits of this strategy are more evenly distributed across the transport network as flood depths are reduced across the model domain. Both options should form part of an urban flood risk management strategy, but this method can be used to optimize investment and target limited resources at critical locations, enabling green infrastructure strategies to be gradually implemented over the longer term to provide city-wide benefits. This framework provides a means of prioritizing limited financial resources to improve resilience. This is particularly important as flood management investments must typically exceed a far higher benefit–cost threshold than transport infrastructure investments. By capturing the value to the transport network from flood management interventions, it is possible to create new business models that provide benefits to, and enhance the resilience of, both transport and flood risk management infrastructures. Further work will develop the framework to consider other hazards and infrastructure networks.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. C. Nkwunonwo ◽  
M. Whitworth ◽  
B. Baily

Abstract. Urban flooding has been and will continue to be a significant problem for many cities across the developed and developing world. Crucial to the amelioration of the effects of these floods is the need to formulate a sound flood management policy, which is driven by knowledge of the frequency and magnitude of impacts of these floods. Within the area of flood research, attempts are being made to gain a better understanding of the causes, impacts, and pattern of urban flooding. According to the United Nations office for disaster reduction (UNISDR), flood risk is conceptualized on the basis of three integral components which are frequently adopted during flood damage estimation. These components are: probability of flood hazard, the level of exposure, and vulnerabilities of elements at risk. Reducing the severity of each of these components is the objective of flood risk management under the UNISDR guideline and idea of “living with floods”. On the basis of this framework, the present research reviews flood risk within the Lagos area of Nigeria over the period 1968–2012. During this period, floods have caused harm to millions of people physically, emotionally, and economically. Arguably over this period the efforts of stakeholders to address the challenges appear to have been limited by, amongst other things, a lack of reliable data, a lack of awareness amongst the population affected, and a lack of knowledge of flood risk mitigation. It is the aim of this research to assess the current understanding of flood risk and management in Lagos and to offer recommendations towards future guidance.


2015 ◽  
pp. 57-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suthirat Kittipongvises ◽  
Takashi Mino

Flooding remains a common environmental hazard worldwide, causing some of the most devastating natural disasters of the last century. This is why understanding public perception hasbecome such an important topic for policy makers concerned with flood risk management.This study investigated public perception of flooding events through analysis of risk communi-cation for Thailand’s flood crisis in 2011. An online questionnaire was electronically distributed toresidents potentially affected by flooding in Bangkok. Results from 437 returned surveys indi-cate that Thai residents tend to display both cognitive and affective biases in their perceptions of flood risk. The majority of respondents believed the great flood of Thailand 2011 was directly caused by government mismanagement and negative impacts of climate variability. These biases mightoccur because of difficulty in evaluating flood probability and lack of adequate information. Floods and related topics mainly evoked feelings of stress, anxiety, boredom, powerlessness andfear. The majority of Thai respondents distrusted any informationprovided by the central govern-ment,while rumors and misinformation could have affected public perceptions and responses tothe flood. The general failure of preventive action and poor risk communication have been reported. Further implications (i.e. Cognitive-Affective Interference in Protective Anticipatory Adaptation; CAIPAAmodel) and further recommendations are discussed.


The process of urbanization has changed overall Land use/Land cover patterns which are being attributed to flooding and resulting in the economic damages from flooding events. This current study aims to evaluate the implication of spatiotemporal changes of LULC Pattern on the flood risk of Surat city (Gujarat, India), Lower Tapi Basin. The Topographical maps and satellite imagery of Resources-1 of the year 1968 and the year 2006 respectively are used for analyses the urbanization index. As the flood risk is a combination of flood hazard, and vulnerability of the urbanized area, flood losses are expected to rise due to change in each of these aspects. The remote sensing and spatial analysis tools of Geographic Information System (GIS) have been used to statistically examine the flood risk index along with their different land-use scenarios. It has been observed that other than natural processes, rapid urbanization obstructions are being considered as one of the main drivers of flood risk aggravation, and if so, it has made essential for the implementation of flood management approach at the top priority for reducing the risk of flood.


2021 ◽  
Vol 943 (1) ◽  
pp. 012009
Author(s):  
HMM Herath ◽  
NTS Wijesekera ◽  
RLHL Rajapakse

Abstract Uncertainty is inherent to the decision-making process of flood risk management, and hence uncertainty management has been identified as crucial in the decision-making process. Flood management has been transformed towards flood risk management highlighting the stakeholder integration and adaptation to extreme flood events. Therefore, the development of multifunctional land uses over floodplains considering the multiple objectives of the stakeholders have become a key to manage uncertainty incorporated with flood risk management. Integration of multiple stakeholders in the decision-making process has been a challenging task. Therefore, spatial planning as a collaborative planning tool has become very important to manage flood risk. Operationalization of flood risk management is mainly governed by the characteristics of the planning processes and it is also coined with the governance context of each locality. However, the importance of the role of spatial planning in flood risk management is still hidden. Further, there is no common framework developed for structuring the complexity of the planning process. Therefore, this research attempts to develop a framework for the operationalization of flood risk management. The conceptual framework was developed based on a comprehensive literature review. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used and integrated with the Delphi technique to identify and calibrate the criteria and the sub-criteria of the framework. The developed framework has been validated with a case study. This research has been concluded that sixteen characteristics of the decision-making process contribute to the operationalization of flood risk management.


Collections ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 155019062098784
Author(s):  
Whitney Baker

In 2018, the University of Kansas (KU) Libraries upgraded from a tired, twenty-year-old basement space to a new, purpose-built conservation lab for library and archives collections. The new conservation lab, which is housed in the special collections and archives library, quadrupled available lab space for its conservators and fleet of student employees. The move afforded Conservation space in the same library as the most vulnerable collection materials. In addition, rooms in the special collections and archives library were repurposed for audiovisual (AV) preservation, creating two new spaces for film and video workflows and upgrading an existing small audio room. This paper will discuss the conservation and preservation lab construction literature and will serve as a practical exemplar of the challenges and successes of the planning process, including lessons learned and unexpected benefits.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 102-102
Author(s):  
Alice Prendergast ◽  
Kristi Fuller

Abstract Efforts to include community voice in health policy and service planning are gaining recognition and support in the United States. Findings suggest community involvement can contribute to a better understanding of systems and factors that impact health, and, subsequently, more effective and sustainable policy and program design. Additionally, engagement can increase community buy-in, and community members can gain a greater awareness of services; increased confidence navigating systems; feelings of social connectedness; and capacity to advocate around issues through participation. Despite these findings, the extent to which community members are engaged in planning and decision-making varies considerably. Researchers from Georgia State University conducted a review of state plans on aging using the Person-Centered Outcomes Research Initiative (PCORI) Engagement Principles and the Health Research & Educational Trust’s Community and Patient Engagement Spectrum as frameworks to assess evidence of community engagement. The frameworks recognize engagement throughout the planning process, including design, data collection and interpretation, and dissemination. The review revealed that few planning processes described significant engagement, but rather met the minimal requirements established by federal policy. Federal guidance on community-informed planning practices is sparse, as are resources to support states in adopting these processes. To address this gap, the research team drew on the frameworks and other promising practices to design two community engagement projects, both in partnership with Georgia’s Division of Aging Services. Methods for participant engagement, data collection, interpretation and application of results, and lessons learned through both projects will be discussed, as well as potential implications.


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