Investigating Decision Mechanisms of Statutory Stakeholders in Flood Risk Strategy Formation: A Computational Experiments Approach

Cities at risk of extreme hydro-meteorological events need to be prepared to decrease the extent of the impacts. However, sometimes, authorities only react to catastrophes failing to proactively prepare against extremes. This can be a result of both absent structural protection measures and problematic governance. While for the first, models exist that can simulate the effect, the effect of the latter is difficult to quantify. This work aims to explore the effects that typical authorities' behaviour has on the decisions for preparing and protecting a city against floods. This behaviour includes how the different authorities decide, for example, on whether or not to cooperate with each other, build something, assign funding to something, etc. These decisions affect directly the preparedness against and the protection from flood events. For that matter, the institutional analysis framework was used to conceptualise the decision-making processes of authorities responsible for flood risk management. Based on this, an agent-based modelling tool has been created, enabling the exploration of the system's behaviour under different scenarios. The tool is used as a case study of the responsible authorities for flood protection in the city of Rethymno on the island of Crete, Greece. The tool has a user-friendly interface enabling the end-users to explore the drivers of decision-making processes under different conditions.