Shaping urbanization to achieve communities resilient to floods

Abstract

Abstract Flood risk is increasing in urban communities due to climate change and socioeconomic development. Socioeconomic development is a major cause of urban expansion in flood-prone regions, as it places more physical, economic, and social infrastructure at risk. Moreover, in light of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations, it has become an international imperative to move toward sustainable cities. Current approaches to quantify this risk use scenario-based methods involving arbitrary projections of city growth. These methods seldom incorporate geographical, social, and economic factors associated with urbanization and cannot mimic city growth under various urban development plans. In this paper, we introduce a framework for understanding the interactions between urbanization and flood risk as an essential ingredient for flood risk management. This framework integrates an urban growth model with a hazard model to explore flood risk under various urban development scenarios. We then investigate the effectiveness of coupling nonstructural flood mitigation measures—in terms of urban planning policies and socioeconomic incentives—with urban growth processes to achieve sustainable and resilient communities. Using this framework, we can not only simulate urban expansion dynamics through time and its effect on flood risk but also model the growth of a region under various urban planning policies and assess the effectiveness of these measures in reducing flood risk. Our analysis reveals that while current urban development plans may put more people and assets at flood risk, the nonstructural strategies considered in this study mitigated the consequences of floods. Such a framework could be used to assist city planners and stakeholders in examining tradeoffs between costs and benefits of future land development in achieving sustainable and resilient cities.