Reducing Urban Flood Risk Through Building- and Lot-Scale Flood Mitigation Approaches: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

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.

Comparison of climate change causes of flood disaster adaptation strategies in Tanzania and Indonesia

“…Infrastructure aspects, including large-scale urban infrastructure and building technology along with approaches to flood mitigation can influence flood risk (Sandink and Binns, 2021). The results of research in the city of Shanghai show that the creation of physical infrastructure, such as the construction of irrigation canals (Fadul et al, 2019), flood barriers or walls can reduce damage caused by flood disasters (Du et al, 2020).…”

The Impact of Underground Structures on Urban Flood Models

“…The smaller temporal and spatial scale of pluvial floods endangers sensitive areas such as subways and underpasses [27]. On the one hand, buildings with basements or underground car parks are known to have a high damage potential [28,29], as water floods the lower structures first. On the other hand, these structures also provide significant storage volumes during floods and, in some cases, also provide floor drains, funnels, infiltration gravel beds, or trench drains, thus influencing the surface flooding situation.…”

Flood Disaster in Erbil City: Problems and Solutions

“…They conducted three different scenarios for the flash flood in Iraq (longest rainfall storm duration, highest overall rainfall depth, and highest rainfall storm frequency per month), and these scenarios were made by taking advantage of statistical techniques and the Geographic Information System (GIS). Sandink and Binns [7] investigated urban flooding and techniques for mitigation. Mustafa et al [8] worked on the flash floods in Erbil City by statistical analysis due to different high-intensity rainfall by using data from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) of the National Centre for Environmental Prediction from 1980 to 1991 and the General Directorate of Meteorology and Seismology in the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1992 to 2022.…”