Abstract
Floodplains, as seen from the flood risk management perspective, are composed of co-evolving natural and human systems. Both flood processes (that is, the hazard) and the values at risk (that is, settlements and infrastructure built in hazardous areas) are dynamically changing over time and influence each other. These changes influence future risk pathways. The co-evolution of all of these drivers for changes in flood risk could lead to emergent behavior. Hence, complexity theory and systems science can provide a sound theoretical framework for flood risk management in the 21st century. This review aims at providing an entry point for modelers in flood risk research to consider floodplains as complex adaptive systems. For the systems science community, the actual problems and approaches in the flood risk research community are summarized. Finally, an outlook is given on potential future coupled component modeling approaches that aims at bringing together both disciplines.
Highlights
Floods are one of the most damaging natural hazards, accounting for a majority of all economic losses from natural events worldwide [1]
I summarized the literature on modeling floodplains as complex adaptive systems
I focused here on approaches that are applicable in predicting future pathways of flood risk evolution in floodplains
Summary
Floods are one of the most damaging natural hazards, accounting for a majority of all economic losses from natural events worldwide [1]. Floodplains are influenced by flood events and subsequent disruptive changes in the society, by governmental decisions as adaptation to these flood events, and individual agents These co-evolutionary dynamics in the drivers for changes in flood risk influence future risk pathways, and could lead to emergent behavior. Complexity theory and systems science potentially provide a sound theoretical framework for flood risk management as postulated by Helbing et al [43] for other risks This short review aims at summarizing recent attempts in analyzing and modeling spatiotemporal changes in flood risk from a complex systems perspective and at giving an explorative outlook of future perspectives in considering floodplains as complex adaptive systems. I am aiming at providing a summary of the prospective approaches for modeling the co-evolutionary dynamics and emergent behavior of floodplains and an entry point for flood risk modelers to consider floodplains as complex adaptive systems. The focus is placed on the approaches for modeling the co-evolutionary and spatiotemporal dynamics in the evolution of flood risks in floodplains
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