Petter Pilesjö
Professor
Re-thinking urban flood management – time for a regime shift
Author
Summary, in English
Urban flooding is of growing concern due to increasing densification of urban areas, changes in land use, and climate change. The traditional engineering approach to flooding is designing single-purpose drainage systems, dams, and levees. These methods, however, are known to increase the long-term flood risk and harm the riverine ecosystems in urban as well as rural areas. In the present paper, we depart from resilience theory and suggest a concept to improve urban flood resilience. We identify areas where contemporary challenges call for improved collaborative urban flood management. The concept emphasizes resiliency and achieved synergy between increased capacity to handle stormwater runoff and improved experiential and functional quality of the urban environments. We identify research needs as well as experiments for improved sustainable and resilient stormwater management namely, flexibility of stormwater systems, energy use reduction, efficient land use, priority of transport and socioeconomic nexus, climate change impact, securing critical infrastructure, and resolving questions regarding responsibilities.
Department/s
- Division of Water Resources Engineering
- Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
- Centre for Geographical Information Systems (GIS Centre)
- Department of Architecture and Built Environment
- Division of Chemical Engineering
- AgriFood Economics Centre, Lund University School of Economics and Management
- Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
- Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)
- MECW: The Middle East in the Contemporary World
- LTH Profile Area: Water
Publishing year
2016-08-04
Language
English
Publication/Series
Water
Volume
8
Issue
8
Full text
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
MDPI AG
Topic
- Engineering and Technology
- Social Sciences
Keywords
- Water
- Flood Management
- urban flooding
- resilience
- climate change adaptation
- blue-green urban solutions
Status
Published
Project
- Sustainable Urban Flood Management
- Urban flooding in a changing climate
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 2073-4441