ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: A major cause of increasing flood risk of cities is the increasing population and value of domestic and commercial buildings and growing interdependency on infrastructure networks. Contemporary flood risk analyses generally include only direct economic damages and fail to consider other flood risks, such as disruption to the economy or the loss of life, which may be mitigated by building resilience into high value assets, critical infrastructure systems and urban communities. The infrastructure networks are critical for the continuity of economic activities as well as for the people’s basic living needs. Resilience in cities depends both on its physical form and characteristics as well as on the people’s capacity, and social behavior. There is a growing recognition that innovative planning approaches and processes based on these resilience principles will guide citizens and other stakeholders the way to become co-producers of a sustainable community that can respond to change and disruption, and pro-actively reduce vulnerabilities. In most industrialized countries, the building stock and infrastructure are mainly ageing and there is much heritage. In the coming decades, the redevelopment (c.f. renovation and modernization) of the existing stock is a high priority and certainly of higher priority than the provision of new housing. Redevelopment projects may thus provide windows of opportunity to make adjustments in the process of urban renewal in order to correct old mistakes and to build resilience by adapting and restructuring the urban fabric to new conditions of increased flood risk. Some cities in the developing world, however, is not often constrained by significant past investments, and much of the change in their urban fabric is to come in the next few decades. There is a huge challenge to exploit this momentum. If we are able to seize these windows of opportunity and share good practices via city-to-city networks stretching across country boundaries and other social networks, than we can create the groundswell for real practical change towards flood-resilient cities at a global level. This can convert the challenge into an opportunity.
