Natasa Manojlovic

Integration of resiliency measures into flood risk management concepts of communities

Based on the recent flood events in Europe and following the latest scientific reports on climate change IPCC, and urban development EEA it becomes evident that the areas in Northern and Middle Europe are becoming increasingly affected by flooding. In the changing environment, the conventional flood protection measures are not providing sufficient protection level and are very cost intensive. New strategies to cope with flooding have to be developed and implemented to adapt the communities to climate change in an adequate way. This paradigm shift from “flood fighting” to “living with floods” reflects the current EU Flood Policy formulated in the EU Flood Directive and adopted by national laws. Especially vulnerable are urban areas where the economic growth, in case of extreme flood events, can be irreversibly disrupted. Other than applying mere conventional protection, the innovative resilience concepts should be considered that integrate the building environment into flood protection by improving the resilience performance of the urban fabric and build capacity of stakeholders. In order to optimise the performance of flood protection, as alternative to resiliency measures for each household separately, integrative solutions for the area/ city quarter are to be considered. In general, which level of integration is to be implemented depends technical, economic and socio-political criteria. The adopted integration level can in any case be supported by the adhock measures that can serve as an intermediate solution and initial phase for active stakeholder involvement. For the historic area of the City of Lauenburg that was recently severely affected by flood events of the river Elbe (2002, 2006), resilience concepts have been developed. Without a solution for flood protection, sustainable development of the city, primarily focused on tourism, cannot be achieved. Different resilience solutions, based on different levels of integration and adaptability are presented and discussed.

Multiple linked sustainable drainage systems in hydrological modelling for urban drainage and flood risk management

Assessing the performance of future urban drainage management practices requires novel hydrological modelling approaches that can handle a large number of spatially distributed measures, such as sustainable drainage systems (SUDS). This paper presents the implementation of a SUDS modelling approach in a semidistributed hydrological model that enables the simulation of flow among multiple linked SUDS and meso-scale retention spaces and the application of this model to an urban catchment. The objectives of the implemented model are the representation of SUDS as model elements with water redistribution functionality as well as its possible integration into a flood risk management tool. The model was applied to quantify the impacts of socio-economic and climate change in an urban catchment in Hamburg, Germany, under different future scenarios and combinations of SUDS. The results demonstrate the potential of SUDS and multipurpose retention spaces for flood risk mitigation.

Modelling decentralised systems for urban drainage and flood mitigation

Adapting to the impacts of climate change and urban growth in urban flood management requires approaches, which mitigate the flood risk and provide sustainable solutions. A combination of local drainage systems and water retention in public spaces may provide an appropriate strategy to cope with present and future pressures on the urban drainage infrastructure. To implement these small-scale hydrological systems in catchment models, novel hydrological modelling approaches are required that can handle a large number of spatially distributed measures. This paper presents the enhancement of a model system and the application for an urban catchment in Hamburg, Germany. The efficiency study of decentralised systems was conducted on the basis of climate change and urban growth scenarios. The results demonstrate the potential of sustainable drainage systems and multipurpose retention spaces for flood peak mitigation.

On the Way to a Flood Risk Management Plan

The Flood Directive EC 2007/60 specifies the structure and objectives of the flood risk management plan and the favourable mitigation measures to be taken for reducing the risk. However, little information is given about the strategy to develop and implement this management plan on a local level. There is an obvious need to find a good governance concept which best supports the implementation process and which will lead to acceptance and proper application of the new paradigm in flood risk management. Within the INTERREG IVb project SAWA (http://www.sawa-project.eu/) the authors have developed and implemented a participatory planning approach for the implementation of a flood risk management plan according to EC FD, which tries to meet the requirements of good governance through broad stakeholder involvement in the planning process. It uses Learning and Action Alliances (LAA) as a communication and decision making platform in which public and professional stakeholders can develop the plan together in a four-step cycle of awareness raising, understanding, experimenting, and evaluation. The software tool KALPYPSO Planer-Client, developed within SAWA, can be regarded as a corner stone in this decision-making process. It enables professional and public stakeholders to define their own scenarios of drivers, flood mitigation and adaptation measures, and to evaluate the impact and efficiency of these scenarios. This new governance approach will be demonstrated with a real case study—the Wandse urban catchment, Hamburg—and the results and experiences will be discussed.

Improving dwellers participation in the development of flood resilient cities

Improving Dwellers Participation in the Development of Flood Resilient Cities Following the requirements of the (urban) flood risk management-FRM (e.g. 2007/60/EC), the dwellers should become involved in the development of flood resilient cities, however they are in general case not empowered for this task. This calls for the development of methods and tools to improve their engagement. Within this work the methods and tools have been developed that address the decision making process on the resilient built environment and empower the dwellers to actively take their role in FRM and protect their homes. The obtained results indicate a strong need to analyse the dwellers and the built environment as the constitutive elements of a multiscale urban system and aim at the combined application the decision making and the capacity building methods. Bezugnehmend auf die Anforderungen des Hochwasserrisikomanagements-HWRM (z.B. 2007/60/EC), sollten die Anwohner eine aktive Rolle übernehmen. Allerdings sind im Regelfall weder die Bereitschaft noch das Wissen vorhanden um diese Aufgabe zu leisten. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurden die Methoden und Werkzeuge entwickelt und getestet, die einen Beitrag zum Kapazitätsaufbau von Anwohnern leisten und allgemein die Resilienz von Städten fördern. Die Ergebnisse deuten daraufhin, dass die Anwohner und die Bebauung als Bestandteile des multiskaligen urbanen Systems betrachtet werden sollten. Die Methoden zur Entscheidungsunterstützung und zum Kapazitätsaufbau von Anwohnern sollten holistisch entwickelt und umgesetzt werden.

A Data Mining Approach for Capacity Building of Stakeholders in Integrated Flood Management

New approaches to managing flood events are increasingly of more relevance due to recent widespread floods and the presumed changes in the climate. These approaches fall under the integrated flood management (IFM) banner and focus not only on flood prevention, but on flood resilience. This paper introduces an application (FLORETO) for IFM that utilizes the data mining approach, in a web based three tier system, devoted to the capacity building of stakeholders as a micro-scale resilience strategy of IFM. The intelligent models, which constitute the business logic in FLORETO, are used to match the input parameters or design criteria, describing properties prone to flooding, to technically justifiable flood mitigation measures. Datasets from the German city of Kellinghusen were collected and intelligent models were built. Satisfactory results have been obtained, which shows the promise of this data mining approach and opens the door for its application for IFM in other regions.