From managing risk to increasing resilience: a review on the development of urban flood resilience, its assessment and the implications for decision making

Abstract

Driven by urban growth in hazard prone areas such as along coasts or rivers as well as by climate change induced sea-level rise and increase in extreme rainfall, flood risk in urban areas is increasing. Better understanding of risks, risk drivers and its consequences in urban areas have revealed shortcomings in the existing flood risk management approaches. This has led to a paradigm shift in dealing with floods from managing the risk to reduce damages, to making urban communities resilient to flooding. Often described as a complex and at times confusing concept, this systematic review identifies and summarises the different dimensions and approaches of urban flood resilience and how they are applied in practice. Our analysis shows that urban flood resilience as a concept has evolved over the last two decades. From an engineering concept with a strong focus on ensuring that the built environment can withstand a flood to a more recent definition as a transformative process with the aim to enable all parts of the urban system to live with floods and learn from previous shocks. This evolved understanding is also reflected in the increasing number of dimensions considered in urban flood resilience assessments and decision support tools. A thematic analysis of the challenges in conceptualising and applying urban flood resilience reported in the literature has revealed a number of issues including around fairness and equity of the applied approaches, a lack of data and widely accepted methods as well as uncertainty around changing risks as a result of climate change. Based on these findings we propose a new research agenda, focusing on meta studies to identify the key dimensions and criteria for urban flood resilience, supporting a transparent and evidence-led operationalisation.

How can Changes in the Human‐Flood Distance Mitigate Flood Fatalities and Displacements?

“…The flood fatalities and displacements are directly related to the changes in human‐flood distance (Di Baldassarre et al., 2013; López‐Carr & Marter‐Kenyon, 2015; Seebauer & Winkler, 2020) and flooded area (Bertilsson et al., 2019; Paprotny et al., 2018; Rozer et al., 2022). According to Figures 1b–1c, a discernible relationship can be observed, with an R 2 value of 0.42 (0.56).…”

Revealing indirect risks in complex socioeconomic systems: A highly detailed multi‐model analysis of flood events in Austria

“…This approach, however, often leads to unexpected knock‐on effects, and might reach its (budgetary and political) limits when costs of intervention are rising. Contrary, “resilience by design,” describes the proactive dimension, with the aim to restructure economic systems such that they can absorb shocks in a self‐organized way without losing its functioning (Rözer et al., 2022). This reduces the need for policy interventions and costs in the long‐term.…”

A decision support tool for enhancing community resilience: the case of Spain.

“…Resilience has emerged as one of the crucial concepts that is facilitating effective disaster risk management across various communities [3]. Studies on resilience have introduced innovative perspectives and valuable tools that not only improve emergency response and coping with the aftermath of a disaster but also underscore the importance of anticipatory planning for preparedness and risk reduction activities [4][5][6]. Additionally, within the realm of disaster risk management, resilience encourages actions aimed at mitigating the impacts of unforeseen events that pose challenges in prediction and management.…”

“…Resilience has been studied across multiple fields, such as economics, engineering, ecology, and social sciences, leading each discipline to tailor its definition to align with its specific standpoint [6,7]. Recently, the focus has shifted from infrastructure-centric resilience-building approaches to a softer approach that emphasizes the collaborative role of community members in fostering resilience [8].…”

“…The word resilience originates from the Latin word "resiliere," which means to "bounce back" [7]. Resilience is a multifaceted concept that varies significantly across disciplines, each offering a unique perspective on how systems withstand, adapt to, and recover from disruptions [6,7]. In ecology, resilience is defined as the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb disturbances and reorganize while undergoing change, thus retaining essentially the same function, structure, and identity [31].…”