Living with Urban Flooding: A Continuous Learning Process for Local Municipalities and Lessons Learnt from the 2021 Events in Germany

Bert Bosseler,Matteo Rubinato,Marco Schlüter,Mirko Salomon

doi:10.3390/w13192769

Abstract

In 2021, heavy precipitation events in Germany have confirmed once again that pluvial flooding can cause catastrophic damage in large, medium, and small cities. However, despite several hazard-oriented strategies already in place, to date there is still a lack of integrated approaches to actually preventing negative consequences induced by heavy rainfall events. Furthermore, municipalities across the world are still learning from recent episodes and there is a general need to explore new techniques and guidelines that could help to reduce vulnerability, and enhance the resilience, adaptive capacity, and sustainability of urban environments, considering the already predicted future challenges associated with climate variability. To address this gap, this paper presents the outcomes of the research project “Heavy Rainfall Checklist for Sewer Operation” which was conducted by IKT Institute for Underground Infrastructure, to involve all the stakeholders affected by pluvial flooding within cities, and implement a series of documents that can be adopted by municipalities across the world to support organizations and their operational staff in preventing problems caused by heavy rainfall incidents. More in detail, three different rainfall scenarios have been deeply analysed, and for each of them a list of specific tasks and suggestions has been provided for aiding decision-making.

Highlights

IntroductionUrban flooding is one of the most frequent natural hazards affecting many cities across the world, leading to increasing life and property losses every year [1,2,3]
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In America, results show that that in the United States an average of 6520 floods have occurred per year from 1996–2016, with annual mean economic losses up to 3986 million US dollars [8], while the economic, social, and environmental cost of urban floods in Mexico is continuously growing [9,10,11]

Summary

Introduction

Urban flooding is one of the most frequent natural hazards affecting many cities across the world, leading to increasing life and property losses every year [1,2,3]. In Asia, for example, during the last decade, Vietnam was one of the world’s most exposed countries to natural disasters, with an average of 650 deaths, damage to 340,000 ha of paddy rice and destruction of 36,000 houses each year [4]. In America, results show that that in the United States an average of 6520 floods have occurred per year from 1996–2016, with annual mean economic losses up to 3986 million US dollars [8], while the economic, social, and environmental cost of urban floods in Mexico is continuously growing [9,10,11]. In Europe, Germany has been the latest country majorly affected by record rainfall which caused a devastating flood in western Germany, causing a number of several fatalities and injuries

Methods

Results

Conclusion