Abstract Flood happened in most of Indonesian areas is basically because of the condition of nature and human conduct. As any other cities in Indonesia, Semarang is a city that never free from flood and it is getting worse and worse each year. Ten to sixteen sub-districts are flooded increasingly each year, among others Northern, Eastern and Western Semarang. Histotically, Semarang is never free from flood. Through forced labour, in 1850 and 1896 Dutch colonizer built two big cannals, called East Banjirkanal (Banjirkanal Timur) and West Banjirkanal (Banjirkanal Barat) anticipating flood in Northern Semarang that becomes business center in Semarang harbour. East Banjirkanal was built to anticipate flood in East Semarang and the development area of Semarang harbour. Originally those cannals built to flow water from the upper part of Semarang (area of Semarang district on the foot of Ungaran hill). Flood problem should be handled not only by structural method, such as building infrastructure, but also by non-structure method namely social and socio cultural aspects. To overcome flood in Semarang, wholy and integratedly starting from planning phase, execution, reconstruction, evaluation and revitalization should be carried out. In planning activities, synoptic comprehensive and transactive or social learning are applied. Synoptic comprehensive planning is applied to study technical problems and policies related to execute the technical execution. Administered synoptic comprehensive is comprehensively, inter-sectors and administration. Transactive or social learning is stressed on social participation related to awereness, objective and education related to culture that nurture the environment maintenance. Keywords: Penataan, drainase, banjir, perkotaan, budaya