5. Contents
• What is at stake ?
• Options for the future
• Conclusions and recommendations
6. What is at stake ? (1)
• >75% flood damage in urban areas;
• Current policies (if any) are generally directed to reduce
flood probabilities;
• Despite economic considerations decisions on flood risk
management are driven by events;
• The protection level is not the result of an economic
trade-off;
• Extreme events (e.g. overtopping) are not yet taken into
account/systems are not designed for failure.
7. What is at stake ? (2)
• Floods are on the rise (damage: 5% increase
annually)
• Number of big flood disasters are increasing
• Only 5 percent of new development ‘under way’
in the world’s expanding cities is planned (UN,
2007).
• Spatial distributions by and large ignore flood
risk
8. Need for change
• Increasing vulnerability and uncertainty
• Increasing complexity (and dynamics)
Current practise:
- Large (collective) protection systems
- Local scale interventions & preparedness
- Mixed strategies ?
9. Towards action
Bringing ideas into action is about:
– Risk perception and communication
– Changing human behaviour
– Learning from best practices and failure
– Relationships
10. Extreme event vs disaster
Natural cause
extreme
climate
weather
change
events
Crisis Catastrophe
major
(devastating)
flooding
Human cause
11. Extreme event vs disaster
Natural cause
extreme
climate
weather
change
events
Disaster impacts are determined
by vulnerability that can be
understood, managed and reduced.
Crisis Catastrophe
major
(devastating)
flooding
Human cause
12. Urbanisation
Current paradigm:
• buildings last forever and ‘site or urban
location is eternal’
• planning practices based upon static
conditions of climate and building stock.
New paradigm:
• cities are dynamic complex systems:
autonomeous/planned adaptation
• change and variability are characterized by
uncertainty
13. CC: uncertainty increases
• Variability increases:more extreme events
• Future climate cannot be predicted on the basis
of past events: probability is dead!
• No best solution
• Opportunities for innovations
• CC actual impacts vs ‘autonomous’ impacts (e.g.
city development) difficult to distinguish: impact
of the first is likely much higher
• CC incentive to reform current practices
14. Coping with increasing complexity and
uncertainty:
Cultivating/enhancing resilience:
• Utilising reversible, robust, adaptable and diverse responses
(structural some non-structural options in a portfolio)
• Multi-sectoral (all parties with flood risk and spatial planning
responsibilities)/linking organizations and institutions across scales
• Long-term perspective
• Building capacity in people and systems (hard and soft)
• Promoting active learning through engagement
• Learning by doing in demonstration projects
• Seizing window of opportunity (e.g. renewal projects)
• Identifying and supporting champions
• …..
* COST C22: CAIWA conference 2007
19. To successfully manage future floods it
requires:
– an understanding of what responses could be
used/are appropiate (much technology
already available).
– the political will and infrastructure to deliver on
these ideas.
– engagement of the public
20. Conclusions & recommendations
• CC provides an opportunity to rethink and adopt
new approaches
• Impact of extreme events can be managed
• Focus on impact reduction requires strong
engagement of the public
• Experimentation and learning
• Need to catalyse action in cities around the
world through dissimination of knowledge,
demonstration projects, from learning networks
and high profile events.
• Flood Resilience Centre
