Resilience of Inland Urban Areas to Disasters Occurred Due to Extreme Precipitations

Abstract

Among possible manifestations of climate change, which, according to predictions for coming period, may oc- cur in different regions of Europe, are the extreme precipitations. These events, often accompanied by storms, may further lead to a whole series of consequences in urban environment and to the occurrence of disasters, such as massive floods. Starting from the description of case of Serbia floods 2014, this paper identifies some of the past human mistakes with ex- perienced (and possibly future) catastrophic consequences, gives overview of future climate change expectations in terms of extreme precipitation occurrence, considers possible negative implications on urban population, built environment and functions, and defines resilient city concept. Finally, the paper introduces strategic proposal on achieving flood-resilient cities. Proposed concept deals both with the mitigation of past errors and the introduction of new, climate-resilient prac- tice in further urban development. Time gap between future (with supposed achieved resilience) and present moment (with supposed high level of vulnerability and therefore risks) is overcome by definition of priorities and introduction of three different time-related categories of actions and results: immediate, short-term and long-term. Achieving social pre- paredness for possible extreme weather events represents the first important step in reducing the possibility of their nega- tive transformation into disaster.