ABSTRACT

This chapter describes how the latest research on flood vulnerability was put in touch with cognitive work analysis (CWA), specifically the first phase (work domain analysis/abstraction hierarchy [AH]), enabling this wider view to be captured explicitly. The flood vulnerability index (FVI) approach is taxonomic — which has many practical advantages — but in complex sociotechnical systems like the catchments and settlements that form the subject of flood risk analyses, there are opportunities to go further. By looking at the problem from a systems perspective the adaptability of the 'system' can be modelled and quantified to reveal a vulnerability profile, and a position within a typological flood risk model defined. The chapter shows how the AH can be explored using network analysis methods based on graph theory, and the novel findings connected to infrastructure resilience revealed. It presents an argument to suggest that susceptibility, exposure and resilience are emergent outputs of a complex, non-linear sociotechnical system.