Increase Flood Resilience Research Articles

Adaptive capacity of homeowners in Ghana to improve technical and social flood resilience

Increasing flood resilience involves the implementation of structural and non-structural measures by homeowners to comprehend adaptive capacity to the impacts to flood events. Analyzing homeowners’ technical and social capacity creates more knowledge and helps to understand how prepared a system is and what specific actions should be taken. This is the basis for recommending appropriate adaptation measures and increasing resilience. The study identifies homeowners’ social and technical capacity aspects in Ghana, West Africa, to effectively improve their resilience. Ghana is particularly vulnerable to flooding, and its flood risk management (FRM) strategy is gradually evolving to encompass a greater role for homeowners. To gain insight into the factors influencing homeowners' capacity to implement measures, a quantitative research design comprising a household survey was employed in three study areas (Accra, Kumasi, and White Volta) with 1,168 participating homeowners. The results offered insights into the high risk perception and respondents’ motivation, the significant challenges they face in coping with flood events, their limited knowledge of effective measures, and the heterogeneous implementation barriers and support needs across the region. Based on these findings, this paper outlines the practical implications, actionable steps, and sustainable strategies that can be employed with the FLOODLABELGHANA tool for resilience improvement.

The impact of floods on plastic pollution

Abstract Non-Technical Summary Plastic harms ecosystem health and human livelihood on land, in rivers, and in the sea. To prevent and reduce plastic pollution, we must know how plastics move through the environment. Extreme events, such as floods, bring large amounts of plastic into rivers around the world. This article summarizes how different flood types (excessive rainfall, high river flow, or floods from the sea) flush or deposit plastic pollution, and how this impacts the environment. Furthermore, this paper also discusses how improved resilience to floods is important to prevent and reduce plastic pollution. Technical Summary Plastic pollution is ubiquitous in the environment and threatens terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Reducing plastic pollution requires a thorough understanding of its sources, sinks, abundance, and impact. The transport and retention dynamics of plastics are however complex, and assumed to be driven by natural factors, anthropogenic factors, and plastic item characteristics. Current literature shows diverging correlations between river discharge, wind speed, rainfall, and plastic transport. However, floods have been consistently demonstrated to impact plastic transport and dispersal. This paper presents a synthesis of the impact of floods on plastic pollution in the environment. For each specific flood type (fluvial, pluvial, coastal, and flash floods), we identified the driving transport mechanisms from the available literature. This paper introduces the plastic-flood nexus concept, which is the negative feedback loop between floods (mobilizing plastics), and plastic pollution (increasing flood risk through blockages). Moreover, the impact of flood-driven plastic transport was assessed, and it was argued that increasing flood resilience also reduces the impact of floods on plastic pollution. This paper provides a perspective on the importance of floods on global plastic pollution. Increasing flood resilience and breaking the plastic-flood nexus are crucial steps toward reducing environmental plastic pollution. Social Media Summary Floods have a large impact on plastic pollution transport, which can be reduced through improved flood resilience

Micro and Macro Scale Policy Framework to Decrease Risk of Flood Disasters in Central Java Province

Flood disasters dominate disaster events in Central Java Province, as many as twenty-three out of thirty-five regencies/cities in Central Java Province fall into the category of high-level flood disaster areas. The potential population exposed to floods is 25,463,472 people. Physical loss and the economy due to the flood 79,846.4 million rupiah so there are in the high class while environmental damage is 1,080 hectares which is also in the high class. The purpose of this study is to examine macro and micro scale policies to increase flood resilience in Central Java Province. The research approach was conducted using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A quantitative approach is used to evaluate the determinants of flood disaster resilience on a micro scale; while the qualitative approach is used to find patterns relationship of flood disaster resilience that is interactive on a macro scale. The results of the research show that the macro aspects of policy are related to technology, infrastructure, ecology, and socio-political aspects related to flood disaster management. While the micro aspect is related to community livelihood assets in the form of human resource assets. Implementation of macro & micro scale policies in Central Java (in this case Semarang City) is closely related to increasing community resilience to reduce the risk of flooding in the region.

Community-Scale Spatial Mapping to Prioritize Green and Grey Infrastructure Locations to Increase Flood Resilience

ABSTRACT With increasing investment in infrastructure to address flooding, including green and grey solutions, there are challenges in selecting the type and location of infrastructure. This paper proposes a method to prioritize locations for stormwater infrastructure. Compared to prior work, it considers both green and grey infrastructure and enables detailed spatial analysis of a community. It uses quantitative measures and includes the multiple potential benefits of green versus grey infrastructure. The method is applied to the coastal county of Chatham County, GA, USA. Results show how the methodology is used to select green or grey infrastructure solutions and highlight locations that should be prioritized for infrastructure investment. Analyses accounting for uncertainties in future climate projections and population estimates are also conducted. The method includes local community characteristics, results in clear placement locations, and with decision-maker input, enables solutions to be adapted as stakeholder priorities evolve to increase community flood resilience.

Dynamic Modeling of Inland Flooding and Storm Surge on Coastal Cities under Climate Change Scenarios: Transportation Infrastructure Impacts in Norfolk, Virginia USA as a Case Study

Low-lying coastal cities across the world are vulnerable to the combined impact of rainfall and storm tide. However, existing approaches lack the ability to model the combined effect of these flood mechanisms, especially under climate change and sea level rise (SLR). Thus, to increase flood resilience of coastal cities, modeling techniques to improve the understanding and prediction of the combined effect of these flood hazards are critical. To address this need, this study presents a modeling system for assessing the combined flood impact on coastal cities under selected future climate scenarios that leverages ocean modeling with land surface modeling capable of resolving urban drainage infrastructure within the city. The modeling approach is demonstrated in quantifying the impact of possible future climate scenarios on transportation infrastructure within Norfolk, Virginia, USA. A series of combined storm events are modeled for current (2020) and projected future (2070) climate scenarios. The results show that pluvial flooding causes a larger interruption to the transportation network compared to tidal flooding under current climate conditions. By 2070, however, tidal flooding will be the dominant flooding mechanism with even nuisance flooding expected to happen daily due to SLR. In 2070, nuisance flooding is expected to cause a 4.6% total link close time (TLC), which is more than two times that of a 50-year storm surge (1.8% TLC) in 2020. The coupled flood model was compared with a widely used but physically simplistic bathtub method to assess the difference resulting from the more complex modeling presented in this study. The results show that the bathtub method overestimated the flooded area near the shoreline by 9.5% and 3.1% for a 10-year storm surge event in 2020 and 2070, respectively, but underestimated the flooded area in the inland region by 9.0% and 4.0% for the same events. The findings demonstrate the benefit of sophisticated modeling methods compared to more simplistic bathtub approaches, in climate adaptive planning and policy in coastal communities.

Green infrastructure: The future of urban flood risk management?

AbstractUrban flooding is a key global challenge which is expected to become exacerbated under global change due to more intense rainfall and flashier runoff regimes over increasingly urban landscapes. Consequently, many cities are rethinking their approach to flood risk management by using green infrastructure (GI) solutions to reverse the legacy of hard engineering flood management approaches. The aim of GI is to attenuate, restore, and recreate a more natural flood response, bringing hydrological responses closer to pre‐urbanized conditions. However, GI effectiveness is often difficult to determine, and depends on both the magnitude of storm events and the spatial scale of GI infrastructure. Monitoring of the successes and failures of GI schemes is not routinely conducted. Thus, it can be difficult to determine whether GI provides a sustainable solution to manage urban flooding. This article provides an international perspective on the current use of GI for urban flood mitigation and the solutions it offers in light of current and future challenges. An increasing body of literature further suggests that GI can be optimized alongside gray infrastructure to provide a holistic solution that delivers multiple co‐benefits to the environment and society, while increasing flood resilience. GI will have to work synergistically with existing and upgraded gray infrastructure if urban flood risk is to be managed in a futureproof manner. Here, we discuss a series of priorities and challenges that must be overcome to enable integration of GI into existing stormwater management frameworks that effectively manage flood risk.This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Engineering Water > Planning Water Science of Water > Water Extremes

Flood-Resilient Communities: How We Can Encourage Adaptive Behaviour Through Smart Tools in Public–Private Interaction

To achieve a more flood-resilient society, it is essential to involve citizens. Therefore, new instruments, such as tailor-made advice for homeowners, are being developed to inform homeowners about adaptive strategies in building to motivate them to implement these measures. This article evaluates if public–private interactions, such as tailored advice, change risk behaviour and therefore increase flood resilience among homeowners. The article conducted semi-structured interviews with homeowners who had received advice as well as involved experts in two case study regions in Europe: Flanders in Belgium and Vorarlberg in Austria. The results show how the tailored advice helps homeowners who are already aware of flood risks and provides them with answers on how to adapt a house. However, the tool seems to lack the ability to inform and “recruit” new groups of homeowners who are not as familiar with flood risks. As such, this article concludes that this initiative has a relatively low impact in raising flood risk awareness among homeowners but may be more successful in serving as a tool that suggests tailored property-level flood risk adaptation measures for those who are already aware. Alternatively, more automated tailored information systems might be more efficient for unaware homeowners.

Evaluating low impact development practices potentials for increasing flood resilience and stormwater reuse through lab-controlled bioretention systems.

Low impact development practices (LID) as alternative measures of urban drainage can be used within the approach of resources recycling and co-management. This study evaluates the potential contribution of a bioretention system to flood control, non-potable water demands (NPD) and resources co-management. Bioretention setups were tested experimentally under variable conditions to identify operational key-factors to multiple purposes. Additionally, the efficiencies obtained for laboratory scale were extrapolated for household and watershed scale, quantifying the indicators of water demand reduction (WDR), energy demand reduction (EDR) and carbon emission reduction (CER) for hybrid systems with LID. The laboratory results indicated that the use of a bioretention with a submerged zone can improve the quality of the water recovered for reuse, while maintaining the efficiency of runoff retention and peak flow attenuation. Comparing the bioretention effluent quality with the Brazilian standards for stormwater reuse, the parameters color, turbidity, E. coli and metals were above the limits, indicating the necessity of a better treatment for solids particles and disinfection. Expanding the analysis to watershed scale, the bioretention helped to reduce NPD demands up to 45%, leading to a reduction in energy demand and carbon emission from the centralized water supply system.

National laws for enhancing flood resilience in the context of climate change: potential and shortcomings

ABSTRACT Flood risk is increasing across the world due to climate change and socio-economic development, calling for a shift from traditional protection and post-event activism towards a forward-looking, risk-aware, and more holistic resilience approach. The national legal system of countries can play an important role in creating and encouraging such a shift. In this study, we explore the potentials and shortcomings of national laws in managing flood risk and increasing flood resilience in the context of climate change. We analyze 139 laws from 33 countries collected from the Climate Change Laws of the World and Disaster Law databases and underpin this with case studies to gain insights on the interplay between national laws and resilience processes. We find: (1) a shift in flood laws from focusing on flooding as a natural resource and water resource management issue towards a broader consideration of disaster risk management (DRM) and climate adaptation policy; (2) a significant lack of climate change recognition in laws regulating decisions and actions for future flood risks, especially in DRM; (3) a prevailing focus on response and recovery strategies and a lack of recognition of risk reduction strategies and proactive flood risk governance approaches; and (4) little recognition of natural capital (comparing to physical capital) and its role in increasing flood resilience. Key policy insights Flood-related laws around the world lack consideration of future risks. Disaster risk management and climate change are often considered as separate issues in national laws, which can lead to gaps in institutional ownership, responsibilities, and allocated budgets. Flood-related laws are mainly created after major events, most of which are focused on reactive strategies (i.e. response and recovery). Laws can facilitate the shift from post-event response to anticipatory actions by encouraging proactive flood risk management (FRM) activities (i.e. risk reduction). Nature-based solutions often remain unrecognized in national laws due to the dominant focus on hard engineering measures. FRM should be treated as a holistic concept in laws: ensuring all the necessary human, social, physical, natural and financial systems are in place to support it.

Use of Structural Soil as a Method for Increasing Flood Resilience in Praga Północ in Warsaw

Celem dociekań jest wykazanie skuteczności nieanalizowanych dotąd właściwości zastosowania podłoża strukturalnego do zwiększenia pojemności retencyjnej. Sposób przeprowadzenia badań obejmuje: przeliczenie powierzchni poszczególnych powierzchni występujących na terenie opracowania, przeliczenie objętości potencjalnego podłoża strukturalnego pod wszystkimi obszarami utwardzonymi (poza nawierzchniami asfaltowymi jezdni) przy uwzględnieniu porowatości tego podłoża, co pozwala na uzyskanie wartości objętości, w którą mogą wpłynąć wody deszczowe. Przyjmując parametry maksymalnego deszczu nawalnego notowanego dla zachodniej części Warszawy (stacja opadowa na Bielanch opad nawalny z 2013 roku – 38,9 mm, czas trwania 1,5 godziny) obliczono, że na analizowany obszar spadłoby łącznie około 6 502 m3 deszczu. Przy założeniu, że pod chodnikami i dziedzińcami znajduje się podłoże strukturalne o miąższości 10 cm i porowatości wynoszącej średnio 30%, uzyskalibyśmy ponad 2 218,5 m3. Wnioski sprowadzają się więc do stwierdzenia, że podłoże strukturalne zastosowane pod nawierzchniami pieszymi i dziedzińcami budynków znacząco poprawiło by zjawisko retencji wód opadowych na analizowanym fragmencie dzielnicy Praga Północ w Warszawie i znacząco zredukowałoby zjawisko lokalnych podtopień.

Citizen Science-Informed Community Master Planning: Land Use and Built Environment Changes to Increase Flood Resilience and Decrease Contaminant Exposure.

Communities adjacent to concentrated areas of industrial land use (CAILU) are exposed to elevated levels of pollutants during flood disasters. Many CAILU are also characterized by insufficient infrastructure, poor environmental quality, and socially vulnerable populations. Manchester, TX is a marginalized CAILU neighborhood proximate to several petrochemical industrial sites that is prone to frequent flooding. Pollutants from stormwater runoff discharge from industrial land uses into residential areas have created increased toxicant exposures. Working with local organizations, centers/institutes, stakeholders, and residents, public health researchers sampled air, water, indoor dust, and outdoor soil while researchers from landscape architecture and urban planning applied these findings to develop a community-scaled master plan. The plan utilizes land use and built environment changes to increase flood resiliency and decrease exposure to contaminants. Using a combination of models to assess the performance, costs, and benefits of green infrastructure and pollutant load impacts, the master plan is projected to capture 147,456 cubic feet of runoff, and create $331,400 of annual green benefits by reducing air pollution and energy use, providing pollution treatment, increase carbon dioxide sequestration, and improve groundwater replenishment. Simultaneously, there is a 41% decrease across all analyzed pollutants, reducing exposure to and transferal of toxic materials.

Flood risk assessment and increased resilience for coastal urban watersheds under the combined impact of storm tide and heavy rainfall

Low-lying coastal cities are vulnerable to flooding under the combined impact of storm tide and heavy rainfall. While storm tide or heavy rainfall alone is able to directly cause widespread flooding in coastal areas, often heavy rainfall and storm tide happen concurrently, and the severity of flooding is greatly exacerbated. Current methods for understanding flood risk and mapping floodplains normally does not clearly communicate either the individual or combined impact of these two flooding mechanisms. Flood mitigation strategies typically target either rainfall-driven flooding (e.g., stormwater controls) or tidally-driven flooding (e.g., flood walls and tide gates). Thus, better understanding and communicating the individual and combined flood risk resulting from these two mechanisms can be important to improving flood resilience. To address this need, this study presents tools and methods for floodplain mapping in coastal urban environments were rainfall and storm tide driven flooding can be better understood and communicated. The approaches are demonstrated for a watershed in Norfolk, VA, USA as a case study system using a 1D pipe/2D overland flow hydrodynamic model built for the watershed. Storm tide and heavy rainfall events with return periods varying from 1 to 100-year were designed based on historical observations and combined into a series of compound storm scenarios. Then these compound storm scenarios were simulated using the hydrodynamic model for simulating flow through both the land surface and underground pipe network systems. Results show how the capacity of the drainage system, and therefore flood risk reduction, is sensitive to storm tide levels, even for less extreme events with a 1-year return period. The model also provides new insights into the role of stormwater infrastructure in exacerbating flooding risk within communities during high sea level conditions. Results demonstrate how dividing the floodplain into different regions based on the dominant flooding mechanism (rainfall vs. storm tide) makes it possible to better target mitigation strategies to improve flood resilience. To this end, a transition zone index (TZI) is presented to help decision makers identify the change from rainfall-driven to tide-driven flooding for locations within a watershed. Finally, we demonstrate how different flood mitigation strategies can be tested using this modeling approach to better understand their impact on increasing flood resilience within the system for portions of the floodplain impacted by rainfall-driven and tidal-driven flooding.

Key Factors Influencing Wider Adoption of Blue–Green Infrastructure in Developing Cities

Numerous fast-growing coastal cities in the Global South are exposed to coastal, fluvial and pluvial floods, as a consequence of decades-long rapid urbanisation and weak enforcement of planning regulations. Integrating Blue–Green Infrastructure (BGI) concepts into the development of the urban landscape has the potential to increase flood resilience and offer broader environmental benefits. BGI is an innovative approach that combines water management and green infrastructure to maintain natural water cycles and enhance environmental and urban renewal. This paper identifies socio-economic, cultural and political challenges influencing BGI adoption in Semarang city in Indonesia. Data was collected from residents of three communities through interviews (n=30), questionnaires (n=180) and focus groups with policymakers and community representatives. The combined quantitative and qualitative data provide an understanding of the specific socio-economic, cultural and political issues at play and reveal flood experience as well as perceptions of community members regarding flood management. Challenges are presented from the point of view of residents and local policymakers and are based on a framework for facilitating local BGI adoption, setting the principles of “inclusive”, “appropriate” and “proactive” as pre-conditions for enhancing community resilience to flooding.

Flood Resilience of Critical Infrastructure: Approach and Method Applied to Fort Lauderdale, Florida

In order to increase the flood resilience of cities (i.e., the ability to cope with flood hazards), it is also crucial to make critical infrastructure functions resilient, since these are essential for urban society. Cities are complex systems with many actors of different disciplines and many interdependent critical infrastructure networks and functions. Common flood risk analysis techniques provide useful information but are not sufficient to obtain a complete overview of the effects of flooding and potential measures to increase flood resilience related to critical infrastructure networks. Therefore, a more comprehensive approach is needed which helps accessing knowledge of actors in a structured way. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States has suffered from flood impacts, especially from disruptions in critical infrastructure. This paper shows how shared insight among different sectors and stakeholders into critical infrastructure resilience and potential resilience-enhancing measures was obtained using input from these actors. It also provides a first quantitative indication of resilience, indicated by the potential disruption due to floods and the effect of measures on resilience. The paper contributes to the existing literature on resilience specifically by considering the duration of disruption, the inclusion of critical infrastructure disruption in flood impact analysis, and the step from resilience quantification to measures.

Lessons Learnt from the 2012 Flood Disaster: Implications for Post-flood Building Design and Construction in Yenagoa, Nigeria

Studies have shown that most parts of Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital fall within the high-risk flood zone of Nigeria and are susceptible to annual flooding. However, the 2012 flood was unusual in magnitude and led to the inundation of entire communities, the destruction of buildings and infrastructure. About five years have elapsed since the floods and new construction projects have resumed in some of the hardest hit areas of Yenagoa. This paper draws on data from a survey of 400 new residential dwellings around areas hardest hit by the flood in Yenagoa. The survey involved interviews with home owners and developers in selected areas, to investigate possible lessons learnt in building design, material use and construction in the region. The results of the survey show the percentage of developers who took precautionary measures in increasing flood resilience and those who did not; the factors that have influenced these decisions and level of professional involvement.

Exploring Flood Resilience Thinking in the Retail Sector under Climate Change: A Case Study of an Estuarine Region of Taipei City

With predictions of extreme precipitation and sea-level rise under climate change that may induce morphological changes of estuaries, increased estuarine flood risk needs to be considered. The aim of this case study was to contemplate sustainability from the perspective of flood resilience that focuses on environmental problems and solutions. The study provided insights into retailers’ resilience thinking regarding the flood-prone Shetzu Peninsula in Taipei City. It is of concern that the retailers strategically identified potential flood risks and have developed adaptive knowledge, skills, and networks. The Location Quotient (LQ) analysis was conducted to verify that the retail sector of Shetzu Peninsula was considered a basic industry. Further assessments, an interactive visualization model and a consumption intensity map, were provided as supportive data. Based on the results, semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore 15 key retailers’ resilience thinking on how to adapt to floods in terms of risk communication under climate change. This approach is vital to meet the adaptation challenge in the Shetzu Peninsula. As a result, the study indicated that retailers have strategically identified potential weather-related risks and have implemented adaptation plans for each store functions. The study discussed that, in the face of climate change, maladaptation, interactive visualization models for communicating flood risks, and place attachment are key issues to increase flood resilience under climate change. The introduction of adaptation interventions in terms of urban resilience as a part of a comprehensive strategy helps to manage the impacts of climate change towards urban sustainability.

Disaster loss and social media: Can online information increase flood resilience?

AbstractWhen confronted with natural disasters, individuals around the world increasingly use online resources to become informed of forecasted conditions and advisable actions. This study tests the effectiveness of online information and social media in enabling households to reduce disaster losses. The 2011 Bangkok flood is utilized as a case study since it was one of the first major disasters to affect a substantial population connected to social media. The role of online information is investigated with a mixed methods approach. Both quantitative (propensity score matching) and qualitative (in‐depth interviews) techniques are employed. The study relies on two data sources—survey responses from 469 Bangkok households and in‐depth interviews with internet users who were a subset of the survey participants. Propensity score matching indicates that social media enabled households to reduce flood losses by an average of 37% (USD 3708 per household), using a nearest neighbor estimator. This reduction is substantial when considering that household flood losses for the matched sample averaged USD 8278. Social media offered information not available from other sources, such as localized and nearly real‐time updates of flood location and depth. With this knowledge, households could move belongings to higher ground before floodwaters arrived. These findings suggest that utilizing social media users as sensors could better inform populations during disasters. Overall, the study reveals that online information can enable effective disaster preparedness and reduce losses.

Re-framing planning decision-making: increasing flood resilience in Jakarta

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to re-frame planning decision-making to address risks of flooding and to increase community resilience. Rapid urbanisation, fragmented governance and recurrent flooding complicate resolution of DKI Jakarta’s chronic housing shortage. Failure to effectively implement planning decision-making processes poses potential human rights violations. Contemporary planning policy requires the relocation of households living in floodplains within 15 m of DKI Jakarta’s main watercourses, further constraining land availability and potentially requiring increased densification. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a preliminary scoping study for a technologically enhanced participatory planning method, incorporating synthesis of existing information on urbanisation, governance and flood risk management in Jakarta. Findings – Responsibility for flood risk management in DKI Jakarta is fragmented both within and across administrative boundaries. Decision-making is further complicated by: limited availability of land use data; uncertainty as to the delineated extent of watercourses, floodplains and flood modelling; unclear risk and liability for infrastructure investments; and technical literacy of both public and government participants. Practical implications – This research provides information to facilitate consultation with government entities tasked with re-framing planning processes to increase public participation. Social implications – Potential increased opportunities for collaborative decision-making and consequent reduction in risk exposure amongst DKI Jakarta’s most vulnerable populations can help to address issues of social justice. Originality/value – This paper synthesises information from a range of sources not available in English, and offers insights into a complex system of governance and modes for improving decision-making.

FloodProBE: technologies for improved safety of the built environment in relation to flood events

The FloodProBE project started as a FP7 research project in November 2009. Floods, together with wind related storms, are considered the major natural hazard in the EU in terms of risk to people and assets. In order to adapt urban areas (in river and coastal zones) to prevent flooding or to be better prepared for floods, decision makers need to determine how to upgrade flood defences and increasing flood resilience of protected buildings and critical infrastructure (power supplies, communications, water, transport, etc.) and assess the expected risk reduction from these measures. The aim of the FloodProBE-project is to improve knowledge on flood resilience and flood protection performance for balancing investments in flood risk management in urban areas. To this end, technologies, methods and tools for assessment purposes and for the adaptation of new and existing buildings and critical infrastructure are developed, tested and disseminated. Three priority areas are addressed by FloodProBE. These are: (i) vulnerability of critical infrastructure and high-density value assets including direct and indirect damage, (ii) the assessment and reliability of urban flood defences including the use of geophysical methods and remote sensing techniques and (iii) concepts and technologies for upgrading weak links in flood defences as well as construction technologies for flood proofing buildings and infrastructure networks to increase the flood resilience of the urban system. The primary impact of FloodProBE in advancing knowledge in these areas is an increase in the cost-effectiveness (i.e. performance) of new and existing flood protection structures and flood resilience measures.