Claudio Biscaro

An integrated approach of flood risk assessment in the eastern part of Dhaka City

Abstract The flood risk is a function of the flood hazard, the exposed values, and their vulnerability. In addition to extreme hydrological events, different anthropogenic activities such as extensive urbanization and land use play an important role in producing catastrophic floods. Considerations of both physical and social dimensions are therefore equally important in flood risk assessment. However, very often the risk assessment studies focus either on physical or social dimensions. In addition, the available studies often focus on economic valuation of only direct tangible costs. In this study, we provide an integrated flood risk assessment approach that goes beyond the valuation of direct tangible costs, through incorporating physical dimensions in hazard and exposure and social dimensions in vulnerability. The method has been implemented in the Dhaka City, Bangladesh, an area internationally recognized as hot spot for flood risk. In this study, flood hazards for different return periods are calculated in spatial environment using a hydrologic model, HEC-RAS. Vulnerability is assessed through aggregation of various social dimensions, i.e., coping and adaptive capacities, and susceptibility. We assess vulnerability for both baseline and improved scenarios. In the baseline scenario, current early warning for study area is considered. In the alternative scenario, the warning system is expected to improve. Aggregating hazard, exposure and vulnerability, risk maps (in terms of both tangible and intangible costs) of several return period floods are produced for both baseline and improved scenarios. Compared to traditional assessments, the integrated assessment approach used in this study generates more information about the flood risk. Consequently, the results are useful in evaluating policy alternatives and minimizing property loss in the study area.

Integrated Risk Assessment of Water-Related Disasters

Abstract This chapter presents a conceptual framework (KULTURisk Framework or KR-FWK) and its implementation methods (SERRA or Socio-Economic Regional Risk Assessment) for integrated (physical and economical) risk assessment and evaluation of risk prevention benefits in the field of water-related processes. The KR-FWK (i.e. from the name of the European project within which it originated) and the SERRA approach were developed upon preexisting proposals, with three main innovation aims: (1) to include the social capacities of reducing vulnerability and risk, (2) to provide an operational solution to assess risks, impacts, and the benefits of plausible risk reduction measures, by including a monetary estimation of costs and benefits, and (3) to go beyond the estimation of direct tangible costs. Vulnerability is considered as a result of the interactions between physical (territorial) characteristics and the susceptibility and the capacities of the socioeconomic system to adapt and cope with a specific hazard, expressed as a nondimensional index ranging between 0 and 1. Exposure, is instead assessed in monetary terms, and thus the multiplicative combination of two indices ranging between 0 and 1 (hazard and vulnerability) with a third one (exposure) expressed in monetary terms produces a monetary quantification of risk, which can be used for supporting decisions via cost-benefit analysis. Regarding the third aim of going beyond the estimation of direct tangible damages, operational solutions are proposed to evaluate four possible socioeconomic costs possibly deriving from the adverse consequences of flood, namely direct/indirect and tangible/intangible costs. The proposed methodology aims to be comprehensive with respect to the set of receptors usually considered in the literature of regional risk assessment. The sets of receptors considered are people, economic activities, categorized as (1) buildings; (2) infrastructures; and (3) agriculture and cultural heritage and ecosystems. We show how to apply SERRA and the KR-FWK in the case of Dhaka/Lower Brahmaputra/Bangladesh, by reusing elaborations already done or in progress and by developing some minimal new work; e.g. to demonstrate indirect/intangible costs.

Vulnerabilities—bibliometric analysis and literature review of evolving concepts

In this work we analyse the evolution of the vulnerability concept in the research streams of climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR). We combine a traditional literature review with data mining procedures applied to bibliographic databases to reconstruct the history of the concept within various research topics, showing its evolution and convergences over time. To do that, we integrate different methods combining machine learning algorithms with network and cluster analyses to examine a set of 3757 articles, analysing their distinctive features and similarities on the basis of their contents as well as co-authorships. Bibliometric analyses enable the identification of different communities of articles, pinpointing key papers and authors, while literature review makes it possible to assess the concept of vulnerability evolved within and beyond research communities and scientific networks. Moreover, this work examines the role played by documents published by UN institutions (UNDRO, UNISDR, IPCC) in contributing to the evolution of vulnerability and related concepts. Results show that signs of convergence are evident between the two research streams, and that the IPCC reports have played a major role in proposing solutions for unifying definitions of vulnerability. We observe that the phases of preparation of the IPCC reports are very rich in methodological and terminological developments, while after publication, the literature shows evident signs of propagation of the proposed concepts. The DRR research stream developed before the research stream on CCA, but the latter flourished rapidly and became much larger in terms of number of publications. Nevertheless, in terms of contents, adaptation studies and the IPCC have shown increasing adoption of the concepts developed within the disaster research stream, in particular with regard to the interpretation of vulnerability as one of the dimensions of risk.

Designing the Interactions in the Museum: Learning from Palazzo Strozzi

In cultural productions, and specifically in the context of museums and exhibitions, the process of construction of meanings has historically involved the audience in a relationship with the product. Nevertheless, this relationship is still designed using traditional language aimed at constraining the interpretation within the pattern suggested by the producer and reducing the room left for free interpretation by the user. Innovation, then, takes place in the offer of services and tools to support the process, and not in a proposal of a new approach to the construction of meaning. Our research discusses a case of an Italian cultural institution as a model for proposing a new approach to the process of interpretation of the relationship between the users and the product. The innovation in this case is the result of a redesign of the language offered to the users, and it is aimed at involving them in the process of sense making. Our article sheds light on the way in which innovation of language may impact the world of signs and symbols that determine the meaning of the product.

Integrated Assessment of Natural Hazards and Climate Change Adaptation: II - The Serra Methodology

We propose an integrated methodology to evaluate the four possible socio-economic costs namely direct/indirect and tangible/intangible costs due to adverse consequences of flood. Although SERRA is based on full monetization of costs and benefits of risk, it can allow for other methods of economic appraisal such as cost-effectiveness when controversial or unethical. By considering social aspect of vulnerability, meaning adaptive and coping capacities of the affected society, we arrive at a more accurate estimation of risk. This further allows us to evaluate the set of risk reduction measures with a focus on non-structural ones, which consequently helps the decision-maker to select the optimal measure given her constraints. Our methodology attempts to be comprehensive with respect to the set of receptors that is an enhancement compared to Regional Risk Assessment that is the mainstream method in the literature.